# Francesco del Giocondo commissioned da Vinci to paint the Mona Lisa Why didn't he end up owning it?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 29, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299 "2015-08-29T16:58:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/1 "2015-08-29T16:58:36Z")
Hi
Francesco del Giocondo commissioned da Vinci to paint the Mona Lisa. Why didn’t he end up owning it?
I look forward to your feedback.
davidmich
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2015, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/2 "2015-08-29T17:08:07Z")
Because Leonardo never finished or delivered it to him, and was never paid for the work. After Leonardo died the King of France bought the painting, and who was del Giocondo to argue with _him_?
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### Author:  [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2015, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/3 "2015-08-29T17:10:21Z")
So Leonardo just took the money and ran?
[http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/mona-lisa-–-portrait-lisa-gherardini-wife-francesco-del-giocondo](http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/mona-lisa-%E2%80%93-portrait-lisa-gherardini-wife-francesco-del-giocondo)
This portrait was doubtless started in Florence around 1503. It is thought to be of Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine cloth merchant named Francesco del Giocondo - hence the alternative title, La Gioconda. However, Leonardo seems to have taken the completed portrait to France rather than giving it to the person who commissioned it. After his death, the painting entered François I’s collection.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2015, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/4 "2015-08-29T17:18:52Z")
What money? del Giocondo never paid for it. That’s why it stayed unfinished for so long - Leonardo was off working on higher-paying commissions.
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### Author:  [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2015, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/5 "2015-08-29T17:35:27Z")
Thanks Silenus. Very helpful.
davidmich
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### Author:  [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/6 "2015-08-29T17:49:44Z")
**silenus** knows his shit.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2015, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/7 "2015-08-29T17:51:42Z")
Comes from teaching European History for 20 years. Ask me how to install a fuel injection system and I cry like a baby.
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### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2015, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/8 "2015-08-29T21:17:49Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Comes from teaching European History for 20 years. Ask me how to install a fuel injection system and I cry like a baby.
Hey, **silenus** , how do you install a fuel injection system on a 2007 Accord?
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2015, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/9 "2015-08-29T22:30:35Z")
\
(You can pronounce that however you wish.) 😛
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### Author:  [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/10 "2015-08-30T00:00:21Z")
Silenus when people commissioned paintings in those days, was there any upfront payment? I was surprised to find out that there was no monetary transaction at all. Was that usual?
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/11 "2015-08-30T00:01:03Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> \
>
> (You can pronounce that however you wish.) 😛
Don’t feel bad. Smarty pants Leonardo didn’t know either.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/12 "2015-08-30T00:12:45Z")
Yeah, and he was shit at database configuration.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/13 "2015-08-30T00:49:08Z")
> [@davidmich](#):
>
> Silenus when people commissioned paintings in those days, was there any upfront payment? I was surprised to find out that there was no monetary transaction at all. Was that usual?
A lot of the time, yes. Michelangelo did the Sistine Chapel basically on spec. The Pope even billed him for rent on his apartments during the commission.
The rich and the Church were pretty much the only game in town, so if you wanted to paint or sculpt, you waited for your money.
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### Author:  [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/14 "2015-08-30T12:58:59Z")
The only specific evidence about the arrangement is what [Vasari says](http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/vasari1.html):
> [@](#):
>
> Leonardo undertook to execute, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife; and after toiling over it for four years, he left it unfinished; and the work is now in the collection of King Frances of France, at Fontainebleau.
More is known about the contracts for some of Leonardo’s other commissions, [most notably for _The Virgin of the Rocks_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_of_the_Rocks#Payment). Though that is complicated by a) the fact that the contract was for the whole alterpiece, not just the central painting and b) the reason it’s relatively well documented is that there was a dispute about it. But that was intended as a case where there was an advance payment, followed by monthly instalments as the work was done and then a final settlement on completion.
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### Author:  [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/15 "2015-08-30T15:48:43Z")
Huh, this is the first time I’ve heard of Mona Lisa being an “unfinished” work, whereas it looks pretty dang complete to me. Was Leo planning to add the eyebrows after he got paid?
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/16 "2015-08-30T16:07:43Z")
Lisa had [some work done](https://dioreone.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/mona_lisa-tattooed-cat-von-by-diore-one.jpg) in the meantime, so it wasn’t really a good likeness.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/17 "2015-08-30T16:38:04Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#):
>
> Huh, this is the first time I’ve heard of Mona Lisa being an “unfinished” work, whereas it looks pretty dang complete to me. Was Leo planning to add the eyebrows after he got paid?
[High resolution image hints at ‘Mona Lisa’s’ eyebrows](http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/17/monalisa.mystery/index.html?iref=mpstoryview).
> [@](#):
>
> The resulting ultra-high resolution photograph of 150,000 dots per inch yielded a reproduction of the “Mona Lisa’s” face magnified 24 times. And there Cotte found the evidence he sought – a single brushstroke of a single hair above the left brow. Video Watch as expert announces findings on “Mona Lisa” »
>
> “One day I say, if I can find only one hair, only one hair of the eyebrow, I will have definitively the proof that originally Leonardo da Vinci had painted eyelash and eyebrow,” said Cotte.
>
> So, if she once had lashes, where did they go? Possibly faded pigment, Cotte suggested, or possibly a poor attempt to clean the painting.
>
> “And if you look closely at the eye of ‘Mona Lisa’ you can clearly see that the cracks around the eye have slightly disappeared, and that may be explained that one day a curator or restorer cleaned the eye, and cleaning the eye, removed, probably removed the eyelashes and eyebrow,” he said.
I’ve seen the museum exhibition of his work - dozens of blow-ups and hidden layers - and it is convincing. The images show the way Leonardo was continually tweaking the final image. A moved finger here, an overpainted background there.
What he considered unfinished would not be so by others. The ultimate why - perfectionism, OCD, not geting paid, the death of the model - is probably unsolvable.
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/18 "2015-08-30T16:38:49Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Because Leonardo never finished or delivered it to him, and was never paid for the work. After Leonardo died the King of France bought the painting, and who was del Giocondo to argue with _him_?
Are there any other paintings of her we could compare Leonardo’s version to?
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francesco-del-giocondo-commissioned-da-vinci-to-paint-the-mona-lisa-why-didnt-he-end-up-owning-it/729299/19 "2015-08-30T17:56:27Z")
Not that I am aware of. That’s part of the whole “mystery,” since up until the early 20th century there were are least 10 different theories as to who the model was and what painting the notes referred to.