If you visit the Louvre in Paris and try to see the Mona Lisa, you will be greeted by a small room containing not only the famous painting but a horde of selfie takers. You won't get to be directly in front of the painting for more than a few seconds. This same spectacle is repeated with respect to many other iconic works at various other art collections. The solution is simple:
Instead of having just one Mona Lisa why not generate 100 exact replicas?

Using high definition scans and a cnc style painting machine, (which exist) accurate replicas of any painting can be produced which are indistinguishable from the original, including the frame.

Once in position, each painting will be labelled as being the original Mona Lisa and there is no way for anyone standing in front of it to tell that's it's not. All will have equal security and all are shuffled around regularly to further ensure that the original is undetectable.

Everyone coming to see the Mona Lisa can now leave convinced that they saw the actual original - (or not, so better see them all to be sure!)
-- xenzag, Sep 12 2023

The reality of trying to see the Mona Lisa https://www.insider...pointing-2023-7?amp
[xenzag, Sep 12 2023]

How about this? Mobile_20Mona_20Lisa
[doctorremulac3, Sep 12 2023]

Bun as payment for stealing and modifying your idea.
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 12 2023


What do we do when we forget which is which?
-- Voice, Sep 12 2023


I would bet good money that the painting the public now sees is a replica due to insurance constraints. The real one is in a vault somewhere.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 13 2023


Actually, because the replica of the Mona Lisa is now the 'iconic' image everyone sees in the Louvre, it has itself acquired a high value, so has been replaced with a replica of the replica.
-- hippo, Sep 13 2023


Making replicas of high value historical objects and placing them on public display is widely done and well known to exist. i think the first I ever saw was the Alfred Jewel in the old Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

If you go to Collins Barracks in Dublin, there is a whole section called "out of storage" or something similar which is like a vault of storage shelves which have been given glass fronts so the unwashed public can wander up and down and see the piles of objects lined up on their storage shelves. One section is stacked high with 19th century "electrotype" replicas of medieval treasures.
-- pocmloc, Sep 13 2023


//Making replicas of high value historical objects and placing them on public display is widely done and well known to exist. //

Very true. I am reminded of the magnificent and ancient Trajan's Column in Rome. The replica of this (a brilliantly-done plaster cast of the entire column) in London's V&A Museum is now in much better condition than the original, having not been exposed to the last century of heavily-polluted Roman air.
-- hippo, Sep 13 2023


The big difference here is that the Mona Lisas are all labelled as being the original.
-- xenzag, Sep 13 2023


Went to the Louvre once, saw how long it took to see the Mona Lisa, said "Este plaisanz?" and went to tour the local pubs instead.
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 13 2023


David Ben Gurion the first Israeli prime minister visited the Abarbanel insane asylum. The tour leader had something to say about everything they saw except when passing a closed door on the third floor. What's that he asked. Nothing, said the guide, let's continue. I demand to know what that is! he said.

Please, plead the guide, there's nothing there which you would want to see. As the prime minister of Israel, I must know what you are trying to hide from me!

They opened the door and an exact replica of BG leaped out and jumped on him yelling I am Ben Gurion. No! I am Ben Gurion. They rolled over each other, and finally, the security guards were able to separate the two, but couldn't tell which was the true one, and which was the institutionalized one.

So, having no way of solving the problem, they randomly chose one of them and put him back in the room.
-- pashute, Sep 13 2023


[xen] the reproduction Alfred Jewel in the Ashmolean was labelled as the original as well. I don't remember how I found out it was the reproduction. I expect more museum items are actually - how would you know?
-- pocmloc, Sep 13 2023


At some time in the distant past I was walking past the Met in NY and saw that the Mona Lisa was on display, so I decided to take a hard left and get in line. I've never really resonated to the mystique around the painting and thought I was missing something and needed to school myself as to the greatness and whatnot. Up the steps and through the heavy doors and there was the line, or rather two crowds funneling into two lines giving access to the right and left galleries. It is a great and good painting, no doubt, with all the subtlety and secret knowledge implied, but the mystique had finally completely evaporated on the waiting line as the guard in the corridor intoned "Mona Lisa to the left, Bugs Bunny to the right."
-- minoradjustments, Sep 14 2023


I smell Kardashians.
-- blissmiss, Sep 19 2023


"Mona Lisa to the left, Bugs Bunny to the right."... The REAL Bugs Bunny??? Gasps - you can see the Mona Lisa any time, but being in the presence of the real living Bugs Bunny would be a once in a lifetime encounter.
-- xenzag, Sep 20 2023


Perhaps an infinity mirror opposite a copy (one of many) of the Mona Lisa with a small opening for you to put your face in, such that both you and Mona can see one another in infinity. Photos $10.
-- whatrock, Sep 20 2023


Why would one want to smell Kardashians? That is a strange fetish.

...and how do one get past their security?
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Oct 24 2023



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