Next to Franklin Roosevelt's and the Cheshire Cat's, perhaps the most famous smile in the world is that on Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa Gioconda, which hangs in the Louvre in Paris. Dr. Maurice Goldblatt, Chicago art connoisseur, believes her expression is a tremendous trick achieved with a compass, the ends of the lips being turned up in arcs which, if extended, would precisely meet the corners of the eyes.
In 1910, La Gioconda was stolen from the Louvre and her smile disappeared from the world for three years. The painting was recovered in...
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