Paris (AFP)

The Mona Lisa found its place on Monday at the Louvre Museum in a room of repainted states in a deep blue night highlighted with black, which highlights the vividness of the colors of the works of the sixteenth century Venetian surrounding it.

After two months of renovation work, Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting, which millions of tourists from all over the world come to see, is once again facing the largest painting in the museum, the Marriage of Cana by Veronese.

The painting of the Tuscan master was transported Sunday evening in the State Hall from the Medici Gallery where he had temporarily exhibited because of the renovation project. The operation was made out of sight, with the greatest precautions for a fragile work.

A deep Prussian blue with subtle black variations seized the visitor from the entrance to the room, contrasting with the moiré yellow ocher that had covered the walls for fifteen years and had tarnished.

The project lasted ten months, three of which closed to the public.

This black-blue seems at first a little cold but, as Vincent Delieuvin, chief curator in the department of paints emphasizes, it aims to highlight "the intense colors - sometimes pure pigments - paintings great Venetian masters, and their gilded frames ". "This Prussian blue with a black patina gives a vibration to the works", he observes, while the paintings seemed previously swallowed by the yellow environment.

The Mona Lisa is visible behind a more transparent glass. The dark background gives it a great depth. "Thanks to this glass, we no longer have the impression of a light greenish filter as before," says Mr. Delieuvin.

Monday evening, lines of tourists came again to admire the Mona Lisa in situ. They followed two courses in serpentine to approach the masterpiece, without creating congestion phenomenon. A circuit that ensures that "Mona Lisa always looks at you".

Previously tourists were confluent in a single square in front of the table and "only the largest, the most determined managed to enjoy the work," says Servane de Landsheer, assistant director of public reception.

Studies have shown that the visitor spends an average of 50 seconds in front of the Mona Lisa, compared to 4 seconds in front of other works.

The project had several objectives: a better visibility of the masterpieces, a written mediation more adapted, a circulation circuit redesigned. A new hanging alternates monumental paintings and more intimate and melancholic works.

The Salle des Etats had not been renovated in fifteen years, during which time it welcomed more than one hundred million visitors in conditions of visit not always pleasant.

The Mona Lisa is the icon of the largest museum in the world, so much so that tourists from distant lands often do not even think of seeing other masterpieces.

When the great Leonardo da Vinci exhibition begins at the end of October, the Mona Lisa will not be moved, and can only be seen in its usual place.

© 2019 AFP