Mona Lisa Warms The Cold War
On 19 June 1974, Mona Lisa left the National Museum of Tokyo where she had been for seven weeks. After suffering the indignity of being sprayed with paint, was she about to return to the safety and security of her home in the Louvre Paris? No.
Before she left Tokyo, President Brezhnev, Leader of the Soviet Union, he of the gargantuan furry eyebrows, telephoned the recently elected Giscard d'Estaing, President of France, to say that, as the plane carrying her had to make a stopover in Moscow could Mona Lisa go on display in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts?
The phone call was astonishing. Not only had the USSR condemned Western Art as degenerate, this was 1974, at the height of The Cold War. It’s not too fanciful to say that Brezhnev’s toe in the water of glasnost prepared the ground for President Gorbachev.
Permission was granted on the condition the priceless portrait was put in a bulletproof glass case. You do wonder what the Soviets thought of that. The Museum allocated a fantastic insurance cover for $100 million (£1m today).
Brezhnev had in fact already seen the Mona Lisa up close and personal. In 1971 on his first visit to a Western country, he was in Paris to discuss cultural exchanges with the then President of France, Monsieur Pompidou.
When President Pompidou took Mr and Mrs Brezhnev on a tour of the Louvre he showed them the star of the show, the most famous portrait in European art.
Did Brezhnev, experience the Stendhal Syndrome? That overwhelming feeling when seeing great works of art in the flesh so to speak? Hardly. Asked what he thought of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, Brezhnev, whose passion was for fast cars*, not art, thought for a moment and said ‘she looks a plain, sensible looking woman' the most famous put down in the history of art.
Oh to be a fly on the wall. Pompidou must have been speechless. However, Brezhnev was spot on. In life, that’s exactly what Lisa Gherardini was.
In the Pushkin Museum, the appearance of this plain sensible looking woman caused pandemonium. More than two million people waited for hours in endless lines through the night to be admitted to the tightly controlled gallery for a few precious minutes with Leonardo's masterpiece. Some sources say Mona Lisa’s stay was brief, just eleven days, others that she was there for two months**.
Following Mona Lisa’s success in Moscow, Brezhnev visited Paris again this time for talks with President d'Estaing. Alarm bells were ringing in Moscow that the European Common Market was becoming powerful, economically and politically. Not only had the UK recently joined but the nine Member States were considering a European flag as a symbol of solidarity.
After three months travelling, Mona Lisa was back home in the Louvre, Paris.
Her devoted fans the world over, anxious for her well-being, hope that this was her last foray into the big bad world. She is, after all, not getting any younger.
It is good that the millions who could never have seen her saw her, but surely a line must be drawn somewhere so that future millions can enjoy the unique experience that is Mona Lisa.
* Gifts of cars were obligatory if you wanted to talk business with Comrade Leonid. Leaders knew that if Brezhnev visited a presentation of a car had to be on the agenda.
Citroen-Maserati
President Pompidou presented Brezhnev with a Citroen-Maserati and a Renault 16.
President d’Estaing presented him with two Matra sports cars.
* * The Pushkin Museum did not reply to the author’s query.
Post by Pamela (BA History of Art). Illustrated by Mark.
Leonardo da Vinci
The Amboise Connection
