The Naked Mona Lisa - A Street Art Mural Painted Under the Louvre
- 1 day ago
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Updated: 9 hours ago
The Naked Mona Lisa is my latest street art mural.
It was painted over 6 days in an underground tunnel in Paris, right under the Louvre Museum — only a few hundred meters away from Leonardo da Vinci’s original Mona Lisa.
The most famous painting in the world now has a rebellious twin — underground.
A mural under the Louvre
The mural was painted in a former car tunnel along the Seine, in the center of Paris.
Today the tunnel is used by pedestrians and cyclists.
It’s a strange environment: underground, noisy, raw, slightly damp.
Not exactly the place where you expect to encounter a Renaissance icon.
A Mona Lisa of our time
I wanted to show a Mona Lisa of our time, naked, vulnerable.
Without the protection of the museum glass, just a fragile human presence.
And yet she still stands there calmly, almost outside of time.
An apocalyptic Paris background
Instead of Leonardo’s mountains and natural landscape, I painted a darker and more contemporary urban view of Paris.
In the background, Notre-Dame cathedral is burning and the Louvre appears robbed.
Symbols of a world where even the most sacred institutions may no longer feel permanent.
Why painting it underground matters
But the most important element is the location itself. Painting this new Mona Lisa in a cold tunnel directly under the Louvre gives the work its full meaning.
It becomes almost a counterpoint to the original painting above.
Above ground: the protected masterpiece inside one of the world’s most prestigious museums.
Below ground: a fragile and ephemeral version, exposed to time, humidity and graffiti.
Two Mona Lisas, two worlds.
Inspirations: Leonardo, Monna Vanna and AI
The main inspiration is obviously Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
But there is another reference: Monna Vanna, a drawing often described as a naked Mona Lisa, attributed to Leonardo’s circle — and possibly based on an original drawing by Leonardo himself.
Another influence came from something much more contemporary: the countless AI-generated Mona Lisas that have flooded the internet in recent years.
Creating the sketch
The project started with a digital sketch.
I worked on it using Photoshop, combining drawing with experimentation using several AI tools such as: Krea.ai, Chat GPT, and Nano Banana.
Once the composition felt right, it was time to go outside.
Painting the mural
No projector. Instead I used a simple grid technique to scale the drawing onto the wall.
The tools were basic: rollers, large brushes and acrylic paint. Street tools.
The unpredictability of street art
Painting in public space is always unpredictable; at any moment the mural could be covered or altered.
Because of that I worked intensely, often 11 to 12 hours a day, to complete the piece as quickly as possible.
The mural was finished in six days.
A viral moment
Once finished, the mural quickly attracted attention. Hundreds of people stopped to photograph it and share it on social media. Seeing a Mona Lisa suddenly appear underground in Paris, just beneath the Louvre, creates a strange moment.
The piece was even featured in the French cultural magazine Télérama.
The ephemeral nature of street art
But street art is ephemeral.
The mural is still there today, but sooner or later it will disappear.
Covered, painted over, forgotten...
That’s part of the game.
Street art appears without permission and disappears the same way.
The digital relic: a 1/1 NFT
Because of that, I decided to create a digital version of the artwork : a 1/1 NFT.
A way to keep the piece alive — as a digital relic of the mural.
More soon. 👀
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