Jokond ile Si-Ya-U

Gioconda and Si-Ya-U     to the memory of my friend SI-YA-U,     whose head was cut of in Shanghai. A CLAIM Renowned Leonardo’s world-famous “La Gioconda” has disappeared. And in the space vacated by the fugitive a copy has been placed. The poet inscribing the present treatise knows more than a little about the fate of the real Gioconda. She fell in love with a seductive graceful youth; a honey-tongued almond-eyed Chinese named Si-Ya-U. Gioconda ran off after her lover; Gioconda was burned in a Chinese city. I, Nazim Hikmet, authority on this matter, thumbing my nose at friend and foe five times a day, undaunted claim I can prove it; if I can’t, I’ll be ruined and banished forever from the realm of poesy. Nâzım Hikmet, 1929

A detail of Mona Lisa’s hands show that Leonardo had initially painted one of them clenched, as if the woman were about to rise from a chair, which is no longer visible in finished the work. Image credit: “Mona Lisa: Inside the Painting”, by Jean-Pierre Mohen, Michel Menu and Bruno Mottin.