Art: Two Famous Smiles

The Laughing Cavalier (1624) is a famous painting by the 17th century Dutch Baroque artist Frans Hals. The current title is a Victorian era invention; the subject does, in fact, sport an enigmatic smile. It shows a wealthy man with a large moustache who is smiling in a proud way. The portrait was painted when the sitter was 26 and in the year 1624. The identity of the man is unknown; when the painting was acquired in 1865 by Richard Wallace's father it was simply called "Portrait of a Young Man". The most likely theory is that the man is in fact a minor Dutch noble from Haerlem. The painting is in the Wallace Collection in London, England.
The Laughing Cavalier is used by McEwans beer as its logo. It has been modified showing the Laughing Cavalier enjoying the beer

The Mona Lisa (also called La Giocconda which in Italian means happy or joyful woman) is an early sixthteenth century portrait by Leonardo da Vinci. It is probably the most famous painting in the world. Vasari, who was Leonardo's first biographer (a person who writes about the life of another person), thought the painting was of a person named Lisa Gherardini and he was correct. Speculation over the painting's model was solved in 2008 by Dr Armin Schlechter, a manuscript expert. Notes discovered in Heidelberg University library by Agostino Vespucciin, a Florentine city official, reinforced Vasaril's earlier indentification of the model. Lisa was the wife of Francesco del Giocondo a wealthy silk merchant, who lived in Florence.
Scholars had been of many minds, identifying several people as the painting's subject. There are scholars who think that the Mona Lisa is Leonardo's mother Caterina in a distant memory and there are some who even think she could be Leonardo Da Vinci himself.
Leonardo began to paint the Mona Lisa in 1503 and finished it about three or four years later. The painting was brought to France by Leonardo in 1516 and it was bought by Francis I of France.
The Mona Lisa used to hang in the Chateau Fontainebleau and was then moved to the Palace of Versailles. After the French Revolution, Napoleon I of France had it hanging in his bedroom in the Tuileries Palace, but it was later moved to the Louvre where it is still hanging today.