Now she really has something to smile.
Mona Lisa leaves shared excavations and in her own “special space” in the Louvre, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday – with visiting Americans who should help pay the expensive upgrade.
The cost of moving the most famous work of art in the world – designed to improve access and shorten waiting times for visualization – will be funded in part by increased tickets for foreign tourists, which would now represent around 80% of the annual visits to the Paris Museum.
The emblematic portrait of Da Vinci “will be installed in a special space, accessible independently of the rest of the museum,” said Macron.
The displacement of the precious oil paint, going back to the beginning of the 16th century, is a small part of a long -awaited renovation which should cost more than $ 800 million, according to a local media.
By minimizing the estimate of the rise in eyebrows, Macron insisted that the project was “realistic and entirely funded” – and would not cost French taxpayers a hundred, according to admissions, sponsorships and more.
The announcement comes on a largely published service note from the Musée Director of the Museum to a French government official, detailing many structural and environmental problems that would endanger many 35,000 works currently estimated in the world class collection.
Some culture critics have praised the news of the move, saying that the Mona Lisa stole the spotlight in the States room, a room full of art too useful, for quite a long time.
“People have just checked their” I visited the box of Mona Lisa, “the French teacher and philosophy of Columbia and the philosophy of Souleymane Bachir told NPR.
“And even if you go to this room with the intention of looking at the other paintings, you would be distracted by the Mona Lisa.”
Of the 9 million visitors present last year, around 80% were there only for the wife of the smiling silk merchant, Quartz reported.
Entrance fully access to the museum currently costs around $ 23. The prices of non -European visitors will be hiked from the beginning of 2026.
Repeated attempts to degrade the beloved representation led to the closure of the table under the bulletproof glass from the 1950s.
A year ago, activists shocked museum enthusiasts by throwing soup on the board to make a statement on climate change.
In 2022, another environmental activist tried to unravel the protective barrier before launching a cake.
“Think of the earth,” he shouted in the bizarre scene. “There are people who destroy the earth. Think about it, artists tell you, think of the earth. That’s why I did that.
