France could make up for its financial losses amid the coronavirus pandemic by selling the Mona Lisa, a tech CEO has suggested. Stephane Distinguin, the founder of tech company Fabernovel, made the suggestion in a magazine interview, explaining that France should “sell the family jewellery” for at least €50 billion (£44.7 billion).
Image: Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci
France could make up for its financial losses amid the coronavirus pandemic by selling the Mona Lisa, a tech CEO has suggested, as the Independent reports.
Stephane Distinguin, the founder of tech company Fabernovel, made the suggestion in a magazine interview, explaining that France should “sell the family jewellery” for at least €50 billion (£44.7 billion).
“Day after day, we list the billions engulfed in this slump like children counting the fall of a stone into a well to measure its depth,” Distinguin told Usbek & Rica Magazine. “We are still counting, and this crisis seems unfathomable.”
“As an entrepreneur and a taxpayer, I know that these billions are not invented and that they will necessarily cost us. An obvious reflex is to sell off a valuable asset at the highest price possible, but one that is the least critical as possible to our future.”
Distinguin also suggested that the Mona Lisa could be “tokenised”, with a form of crypto-currency allowing the painting to be easily exchanged between nations.
“It would be like a big global subscription,” he explained. “Legally and technically, this solution would have many advantages: it would allow France and the Louvre to keep control of the painting. One can even imagine that this ploy would garner the assent of the great Leonardo da Vinci, he who painted but also mastered all the sciences and technologies of his time.”
In 2019, the Louvre commenced work on a virtual reality programme that would allow visitors to experience da Vinci’s Mona Lisa up close and away from the crowds of tourists at the world-famous gallery.
The painting was also dubbed the world's most disappointing tourist's attraction in April 2019, according to a survey conducted by Easyjet customers.
Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.
ArtDependence Magazine is an international magazine covering all spheres of contemporary art, as well as modern and classical art.
ArtDependence features the latest art news, highlighting interviews with today’s most influential artists, galleries, curators, collectors, fair directors and individuals at the axis of the arts.
The magazine also covers series of articles and reviews on critical art events, new publications and other foremost happenings in the art world.
If you would like to submit events or editorial content to ArtDependence Magazine, please feel free to reach the magazine via the contact page.
