FAMOUS PICTURE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1214, 24 August 1911, Page 5

FAMOUS PICTURE.

STOLEN FROM THE LOUVRE. By Telegraph—Prase Association-Copyright Paris, August 22. Leonardo da Vinci's "La Giocondn," or "Jlona Lisa," ono of the world's most famous portraits, painted oil a wooden pauel, has been stolen from tho Louvre Gallery.

This famous picture has long been one of the glories'of tho Louvre. Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1152 and died in 1519 having excelled in almost evory honourable human attainment and pursuit, the commercial nnd poluical exceptod. Ho was the most accomplished painter of his generation, and one of the most accomplished of tho world. During the years between 1500 and 1000 Leonardo was engaged at intervals upon the portraits of two ladies of Milan— Gineven, Benci, and Lisa di Antonio Maria di Noldo Gherardina, commonly called Mana (Madonna) Lisa, or La Gioconda. Tho first of theso portraits \s lost and the second is that now stolen. It was bought by Francis I for four thousand "old florins. In Madonna Lisa Leonardo seemed to have found a sitter whose features possessed in a singular degree tho intellectual charm in which ho delighted, and in whose smile was realised the inward, haunting, mysterious expression which had always boon his ideal. It was generally considered to bo the most striking exa'mplo of his powers.