Mae's Real Stories

Here she is: my Mona Lisa Barbie. This is my first -- and last -- Barbie doll in my whole life. I guess. Unless they make a Leonardo Ken with a paintbrush or something.

Labels: Mona Lisa

Here's Mona Lisa in a dollhouse museum -- along with other nice little things.

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Happy Thanksgiving from Mona Lisa Turkey!

Labels: Mona Lisa

Labels: Mona Lisa

I haven't found a new Mona Lisa lately, but this morning, in a photo store....

Labels: Mona Lisa

Leonardo da Vinci painted Mona Lisa more than 500 years ago, before anyone invented the camera. The painting is the only picture of Mona Lisa, and there are no pictures that show Leonardo for sure. There is one picture of an old man, but no one can be sure it's really Leonardo. In fact, no one is sure he drew it.

I have been putting up lots of pictures that show how various modern people imagined Leonardo looked and how he set up his art studio to paint Mona Lisa. But everyone is only guessing.

Labels: Mona Lisa

Labels: Mona Lisa

I love to imagine what it was like when Leonardo da Vinci was painting Mona Lisa. The author Sean Connolly imagined it like this in his book The Life and Work of Leonardo da Vinci.

Labels: Mona Lisa

Labels: Mona Lisa

Labels: Mona Lisa

The first picture shows what Mona Lisa looked like in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, about 14 years ago.

The second picture is a copy of a post card from almost 100 years ago. Not long before this card was made, in 1911, a man stole the Mona Lisa and kept it for about a year. The card was made while the Mona Lisa was missing, to show how it had been. Soon afterwards, the police in Italy found the painting and returned it to Paris.

Labels: Mona Lisa

Labels: Mona Lisa

You know that I collect funny Mona Lisas. I will put some pictures here for you to look at. To start with, here's my Mona Lisa Rubber Duckie. I think she is silly, do you?

Labels: Mona Lisa

When I was a little girl we sometimes went to the St.Louis Art Museum. My mother often showed us books or magazines with famous art works shown in them. I liked the picture shown above of a princess named Margharita. A Spanish artist named Velazquez made this picture. A framed copy of it hung on the wall of the bedroom that Elaine and I shared.


One time our family went to see a very famous picture named "The Man with the Golden Helmet" (above) at the Art Museum. The picture was only there for a short time, and my mother explained that it was very special to see it. Recently I visited in Berlin, Germany, and I saw it again in a museum there. I still think it is wonderful.

Vermeer was a very wonderful painter. He painted the next two pictures. The first one shows a geographer, that is, a man who makes and studies maps. The second shows a woman standing at a window.


One of the most famous paintings in the world is the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. The real painting is in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. Copies of it, including many silly copies, are everywhere.

When Evelyn saw the real Mona Lisa for the first time, she was very disappointed. "That's the most famous painting in the world?" she asked. "It's boring!"

After that, I started to show her silly pictures that people had made that looked a little like Mona Lisa and also many things that have a copy of Mona Lisa on them. Since everyone knows what Mona Lisa looks like, everyone can laugh at a silly picture of someone like her. I have a lot of cards, advertisements, games, and other things with Mona Lisa on them. Here is one of the silliest things I have: a rubber duckie that looks like Mona Lisa.

Labels: Mona Lisa