The Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) is Leonardo's portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo, painted c. 1503–1519. It is the world's most famous painting, housed in the Musée du Louvre behind climate-controlled bulletproof glass.

Its fame rests on Leonardo's revolutionary sfumato technique (30+ ultra-thin glaze layers creating an “airbrush” effect centuries before airbrushes existed), the enigmatic smile (which Harvard neuroscientist Margaret Livingstone demonstrated exploits the difference between foveal and peripheral vision), and its extraordinary provenance — from Francis I's personal collection to Napoleon's bedroom to the 1911 theft that made it a global celebrity.