Pamela Goodman: In the battle of the beauties, Mona Lisa will always come out on top

Conversation around the lunch table on Boxing Day turned to the Mona Lisa. The primary reason for this being that among our number was my father-in-law, who spent the last few years of a long teaching life imparting his immense knowledge of History of Art to A-level students, including, no less, our future King. The Renaissance is his speciality and even as he approaches four score years and 10 his ability to remember dates and details of the art and artists of that period is astounding.

The question under discussion concerned the beauty of Mona Lisa when, according to most of us heathens sitting around the table, she is such a plain Jane. Inevitably, my father-in-law sprang to her defence, citing not simply the obvious disparity in perceptions of beauty between the 16th and 21st centuries, but the more complex nuances of the painting. He talked of Leonardo da Vinci’s skilful use of sfumato in creating delicate, smoky layers of paint to convey his sitter’s emotional aura of dignity and calm; how the ambiguity of her beauty is in itself beautiful; how her face and her posture, unadorned by jewellery or obvious signs of wealth, is less about physical attractiveness and more about the moral and intellectual beauty of her soul. He told us how da Vinci worked on the painting for years, never delivering it to the Giocondo family who had commissioned the portrait, but keeping it with him until his death in 1519. For some reason, the artist could never let his Lady Lisa go.

The conversation reminded me of a similar impassioned declaration of female beauty my father-in-law had shared with us several years before. We were off to Venice with young children in tow, so thought we should consult the oracle for the perfect itinerary for a cultural, but not overly intense, family trip. The father-in-law, still teaching at the time, took the task very seriously, even going to the lengths of setting up a projector in his study, sitting the five of us down and presenting a slide show of all the best bits of La Serenissima and the sights he had singled out for us. There were to be a lot of Virgin Marys and Baby Jesuses, so we hatched a cunning plan that after every 20 spotted of either one the reward would be an ice cream at Nico’s, the city’s famous gelateria on the Zattere. Miraculously, we whipped around multiple churches and galleries with extraordinary speed and spent far longer than we might ever have anticipated watching boats on the Giudecca.

Back on the slide show, however, our attention had been drawn to one church and one painting above all others that, in my father-in-law’s estimation, represented the most exquisite depiction of the Virgin Mary in all art history. We left this one until last, when we were so full of ice cream there was no need to rush and so pumped up on Virgin Marys we had plenty of benchmarks. In a campo, just beyond St Mark’s Square, we entered the church of San Zaccaria, posting a coin to illuminate an altar piece to the left. There she was. Giovanni Bellini’s famous Virgin, eyes cast down, a naked child Jesus standing in her lap with a surrounding company of saints. Painted in 1505, at much the same time as the Mona Lisa, Mary emits a comparable sense of humanity and spiritual depth. Consider Bellini’s use of soft, diffused light, my father-in-law had said, and see how her beauty shines through dreamlike stillness — details, of course, way beyond the comprehension of young, sugar-fuelled children. I have been back to San Zaccaria several times since, loving the idea that he loves her so.

This year, it’s time I revisit the Mona Lisa.

This feature originally appeared in the February 4, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.