In 1963, Leonardo DaVinci's "Mona Lisa" made its first appearance in the U.S. Among the 10,000 people who filed into the capitol's National Gallery of Art for a glimpse on opening day was one young boy dressed in an overcoat who alarmed security guards when he suddenly "flashed" the Mona. Authorities quickly discovered that what the boy was revealing to the Mona Lisa was his smuggled dog, with whom he wanted to share his appreciation of the world's best known painting. Although the Mona Lisa returned home to the Louvre after her brief stateside visit, Leonardo's first portrait of a lady, "Ginevra de Benci" arrived four years later to take up residence in the NGA as the only DaVinci in the Western hemisphere. Narrated by Meryl Streep, Ginevra's Story unfolds like an artistic version of a NOVA episode, as the filmmakers speculate on the chain of events that led DaVinci to paint the young, most likely unhappily married, Florentine maiden Ginevra de Benci in 1474; follow the bizarre journey of the painting from Italy to Liechtenstein to America; and offer reasoned conjecture about the missing bottom third of the work (brilliantly reconstructed for the program using computer enhancement). An engaging piece of cross-disciplinary reportage that draws from biography, history, art, and technology to tell a fascinating tale, Ginevra's Story is highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)
Ginevra's Story
(1999) 57 min. $29.95 ($59.95 w/PPR). Home Vision Arts. Color cover. ISBN: 0-7800-2341-2. Vol. 15, Issue 6
Ginevra's Story
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