22nd August: Mona Lisa

On this date in 1911, The Mona Lisa was stolen from The Louvre. 10 things you might not know about Mona Lisa:

1. The name of the painting is actually a spelling mistake. It should be "Monna Lisa". "Monna" is a polite form of address in Italian, equivalent to "my lady" in English.
2. The subject of the painting is generally thought to be Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a wealthy silk merchant - although over the years there has been speculation that it represented da Vinci's mother, his male lover or even da Vinci himself as a woman.
3. Mona Lisa has no eyebrows or eyelashes. While some historians believe that this was because women of the time thought them unsightly and used to pluck them, modern scans of the painting suggest that she was originally painted with eyebrows, but they've worn off when the painting was cleaned.
4. Napoleon had the painting in his bedroom for a time.
5. The Mona Lisa is painted on a wood panel, rather than canvas, which may explain why it is so well preserved for its age. The frame has been changed many times.
6. Visitors to the Louvre spend 15 seconds, on average, looking at the Mona Lisa.
7. When the painting was stolen in 1911, Pablo Picasso was a suspect and was questioned about the theft, as was French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who had once called for the Louvre to be burnt down. In fact, the whole thing was an inside job - Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia did it. He simply hid in a broom cupboard after his shift and walked out with the painting under his coat. Peruggia was an Italian patriot who believed the painting should be in an Italian museum, not a French one! After keeping it in his flat for a while he tried to sell it to the directors of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and that is when he was caught. The painting was returned to the Louvre in 1913.
8. The painting has also been vandalised several times. It had acid and a rock thrown at it by vandals in 1956, red paint sprayed at it in 1974 (while on display in Tokyo) by a disabled woman protesting about the museum's disabled access policy, and a terracotta mug was lobbed at it in 2009 by a disgruntled Russian woman who had been denied French citizenship. The first couple of attacks resulted in minor damage, but not the more recent ones, as Mona Lisa is now protected by bullet-proof glass, in a specially controlled environment in a room which cost 7 million dollars to build.
9. Members of Italy's National Committee for Cultural Heritage have claimed that, if you look at the painting under a microscope, it is possible to see letters and numbers hidden in the Mona Lisa's eyes, including "LV", da Vinci's initials.
10. The Mona Lisa is not insured because it is considered to be completely priceless.