French courts hear unusual request to return ‘Gioconda’ painting

The French courts will examine, on Thursday, the unusual request of an association requesting the return of the “Gioconde”, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece exhibited at the Louvre, which has little chance of success, reports AFP according to News.

The Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest administrative court, was requested by International Restitutions, a mysterious association whose headquarters and leaders are unknown, to “declare non-existent” the decision of King Francis I “to appropriate” the portrait of Mona Lisa.

The association, which appears before the State Council without a lawyer, demands that all documents “taken on the basis of the contested decision” be declared “non-existent”.

International Restitutions, which claims to be acting “on behalf of the descendants of the painter’s heirs”, hopes that, if successful, this Renaissance masterpiece will be “erased” from the inventory of the Louvre Museum.

Should the International Restitutions claim succeed, should the Mona Lisa, which has at times been a source of tension between France and Italy, be withdrawn from the Louvre? Certainly not in the immediate future. Similar requests from the association, for works less emblematic than “Mona Lisa”, were never successful.

In October 2022, for example, the association, which requested the removal from the inventory of the Louvre of “objects originating from the transports made following the excavations carried out by the archaeological service of the Oriental Army”, was told that it would not be possible to remove the “Gioconde”.

After falling out of favor with the Medici family, Leonardo da Vinci came under the protection of Francis I in the winter of 1516.

In his luggage he took several of his paintings, including the “Mona Lisa” (painted between 1503 and 1506). He offered his works to the French sovereign, who paid him a pension in return.

These works entered the royal collections and never left France. The Mona Lisa has been in the Louvre since 1797.