Storm Over Mona Lisa Loan
(N.Z.P Copyright) PARIS, Dec. 12. France is to send her most celebrated painting, the Mona Lisa, to the United States for exhibition, the French Ministry for Cultural Affairs announced tonight. Leonardo da Vinci's 459y ear-old masterpiece has been in the Louvre since Napoleon sent it there in 1804. It will go on show for three weeks in the National
Gallery at Washington. The decision to lend the painting was taken at Government level after a stormy controversy in France. Many prominent art critics declared the journey and changes of temperature or humidity might crack the wood panels on which it is painted.
The Culture Ministry has announced exceptional precautions for the Mona Lisa which will leave in a luxury cabin on the liner France on Friday.
It will be kept under constant guard in a special container. The painting will be exhibited at the National Gallery from January 8. Arrangements have been made to keep the painting in the same temperature and humidity as those existing ia the Louvre. Officials said transfer ci the Mona Lisa from the Louvre to the liner, France, would be carried out “in greatest secrecy.”
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19621214.2.110
Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CI, Issue 30005, 14 December 1962, Page 13
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195Storm Over Mona Lisa Loan Press, Volume CI, Issue 30005, 14 December 1962, Page 13
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