Moaner Lisa

‘IT’S not easy sitting in the same place all day and smiling at everyone who walks past, as anyone who has worked on a supermarket check-out will know.

‘If I have to smile for one more bloody photo…’

So, we should not be surprised that, after 500 years of grinning enigmatically, the Mona Lisa’s smile is getting a bit thin.

After all, Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece has to smile at five million visitors a year.

According to the Times, the Louvre Museum is so worried by the painting’s deterioration that it has ordered a detailed study into its condition.

The painting, which is now housed in an air-conditioned glass cage and in its own room, will remain on display while the tests are carried out.

The Times says the last repair was in the mid-1950s, when she had age spots removed, but curators are so far resisting calls to give her a facelift.

It would, they say, be too risky.

However, perhaps it isn’t just age that has affected the Mona Lisa’s smile – perhaps, it’s just that she’s got less to smile about.

Perhaps, as an Italian in Paris, she’s homesick. Perhaps, like so many of us, she’s dismayed with what passes for American policy in the Middle East.

Or perhaps she’s just found out that David Beckham was also sending text messages to the Venus de Milo down the corridor…’

Posted: 27th, April 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink