Woman throws mug at ‘Mona Lisa’

Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece the "Mona Lisa" was attacked with a mug earlier this month, but the world’s most famous painting — protected by thick glass — emerged with its enigmatic smile undimmed. French police say a woman “not in her senses” lobbed the mug at the 500-year-old painting, which hangs in the Louvre gallery in Paris.

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Art’s Great Whodunit: The Theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911

Even at the beginning of the 20th century — before mass reproductions, package tours to France and The Da Vinci Code — Mona Lisa was different from other pictures. The woman with the enigmatic smile got so many love letters that her portrait was the only artwork at the Louvre to have its own mailbox.

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