--- description: From high art to full-blown kitsch, imitations of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece title: Copying the Mona Lisa image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [World](/section/world/) * [LightBox](/tag/time-section-lightbox/) # Copying the Mona Lisa by [TIME](/author/time/) Feb 2, 2012 5:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Feb 2, 2012 5:00 AM CUT From high art to full-blown kitsch, imitations of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece ### Da Vinci Contemporary  An authenticated contemporary copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is displayed at the Prado Museum in Madrid on Feb. 1, 2012\. Experts of the Prado Museum say the copy was painted at the same time as the Mona Lisa in da Vinci's studio by one of his students. Pablo Blazquez Dominguez / Getty Images ### Paint Job  A Volkswagen Beetle spray-painted with a tribute to the Mona Lisa appears at the sixth New Beetle Sunshine Tour in Luebeck-Travemuende, Germany, on Aug. 7, 2010\. The event is the biggest meeting worldwide for owners of the new Volkswagen Beetle. Bodo Marks / DPA / Corbis ### Tech Art  A Chinese visitor inspects a Mona Lisa homage made from hundreds of used computer parts displayed at the ninth China Beijing International High-Tech Expo in Beijing on May 26, 2006\. The Leonardo da Vinci–inspired piece is titled Technology Smiling. Claro Cortes / Reuters ### Soccer Fan  German soccer supporters walk in Cologne on June 24, 2006, near a street painting representing Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa with German flags on her cheeks; it is called World Champion Lisa. According to the police, an estimated 3 million people were in the streets of Germany to watch the host nation beat Sweden and advance to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. Henning Kaiser / AFP / Getty Images ### Carnival  A reveler representing Italian painter Leonardo da Vinci "paints" the Mona Lisa atop a float from the Viradouro samba school at the Sambadrome on Feb. 8, 2005. Vamderlei Almeida / AFP / Getty Images ### A Good Fake  Auctioneer Regis Bailleul in Bayeux sits next to a 1600s replica of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa painting on Nov. 7, 2003\. The replica, one of the oldest known, was auctioned Nov. 11, 2003, for €47,000. Mychele Daniau / AFP / Getty Images ### Facial Hair  Robert Hue, chairman of the French Communist Party, views a mustached Mona Lisa by Dadaist painter Marcel Duchamp; it was lent by his party for the first time on Jan. 23, 2002, for the opening of the "Paris: Capital of the Arts 1900–1968" exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Duchamp's work, painted in 1919, bears the humorous title L.H.O.O.Q, which, when uttered quickly in French, sounds like "She is hot in the derriere." It has for decades adorned the office of the headquarters of the French Communist Party. Nicolas Asfouri / AFP / Getty Images ### New ‘Do  The shop window of a hairdresser in the Chinese district of Montreal on Sept. 18, 2001, depicts the Mona Lisa having her hair coiffed. Francois Le Diascorn / Rapho / Getty ### Tourist Trap  A man carries a cutout Mona Lisa for tourists to put their faces in across the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris in 2001. Francois Le Diascorn / Rapho / Getty ### Wearable  Mona Lisa T-shirts are offered for sale on the Rue Rivoli in Paris in 2001. Francois Le Diascorn / Rapho / Getty ### Needlepoint  Throw pillows adorned with the Mona Lisa's face are presented at a 2001 Cholet Museum exhibition on the masterwork in Cholet, France. Francois Le Diascorn / Rapho / Getty ### Bling  People look at a jewel-made replica of the Mona Lisa at a shopping mall in Shenyang, a city in northeast China's Liaoning province, on March 6, 2011\. Its owner, a jewelry collector, spent five years completing the work with more than 100,000 carats of raw jewel stones he collected over 30 years. Chang Xs / Corbis ### Dragon Lady  The artwork shown here, Le Jocondausaure (1997), is displayed at the exhibition "Les 100 Sourires de Mona Lisa" at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum on March 15, 2000\. The show features work dating back to the 17th century, appropriating Leonardo da Vinci's most famous painting, the Mona Lisa. Tokyo Metropolitan Museum via Fujiphotos / Global Photo ### Victory  In celebration of the University of Wisconsin's win in the 1994 Rose Bowl, Dennis Wiemer of Ladysmith, Wis., painted the Mona Lisa on a barn. Layne Kennedy / Corbis ### Textile  Viewers get a flipped view of a sculpture made of 5,184 spools of thread on March 17, 2010; they are seen through an acrylic viewing sphere titled After the Mona Lisa 2, created by artist Devorah Sperber, at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, N.C. Corey Lowenstein / Raleigh News and Observer / MCT / Getty Images ### 999  A Chinese woman walks past a huge portrait of the Mona Lisa made up of oil-painting segments of various sizes at the Shenzhen Pavilion of the Urban Best Practices Area at the Expo Park in Shanghai on Sept. 5, 2010\. More than 500 painters collaborated on the piece. Imaginechina / Corbis ### Souvenir  A child poses inside a Mona Lisa canvas at the Leonardo da Vinci science and art show in Hangzhou, a city in eastern China's Zhejiang province, on Sept. 24, 2010. Wu Hong / EPA ### In White  Chinese painter Yan Pei-Ming, left, stands next to his painting, one in a five-part series named Les Funérailles de Mona Lisa (Mona Lisa's funerals), at the Louvre museum in Paris on Feb. 10, 2009. Patrick Kovarik / AFP / Getty Images ### Faux  An employee adjusts a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece the Mona Lisa, bearing the word fake in Arabic, at a galley in Kuwait City on May 23, 2009\. The gallery sells famous reproductions with humorous or well-known Arabic quotes printed on them. Yasser Al-Zayyat / AFP / Getty Images ### Giant  Getty Images—2009 Getty Images WREXHAM, WALES - OCTOBER 28: Luke Wharton-Jones, aged eight, runs across the world's biggest copy of the Mona Lisa during a photocall for its unveiling on October 28, 2009 in Wrexham, Wales The giant version of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece measures 17.5 metres across and is 50 times bigger than the original painting and was created by community groups in Wrexham and artist Katy Webster. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) ### In Costume  Revelers dressed as Leonardo da Vinci and his world-famous masterpiece the Mona Lisa attend the 35th annual New York Village Halloween Parade on Sixth Avenue on Oct. 31, 2008. 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