The Isleworth Mona Lisa: A Legal Battle for Custody

One of Leonardo da Vinci's famous works, the Mona Lisa, may have had a much earlier unfinished version hidden in the vault of a Swiss bank. Historians are still debating on whether this is just a mere copy or something painted by da Vinci himself, but for now, people are disputing about who will get custody of it.

Known to some as the "Earlier Mona Lisa," the painting has spent much of the past five decades hidden in a Swiss bank vault. Acquired by a secretive consortium in 2008, the painting has since been shown in a number of galleries, most notably in Singapore in 2014 and Shanghai two years later.
Then, in June, it went on display at Florence's Palazzo Bastogi -- the first time it has been seen in public in Europe this century. As the show came to its conclusion, an anonymous claimant made a dramatic legal grab for a quarter ownership of the artwork.

More on this story at CNN.

(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)


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