Mona Lisa is alone but still smiling 27 Jan, 2021 02:03 AM 7 minutes to read The Mona Lisa is alone. Photo / Dmitry Kostyukov, The New York Times New York Times By: Liz Alderman With the Louvre closed because of the pandemic, museum officials are pushing ahead on a grand restoration and cleanup. From her bulletproof case in the Louvre Museum, Mona Lisa's smile met an unfamiliar sight the other morning: emptiness. The gallery where throngs of visitors swarmed to ogle her day after day was a void, deserted under France's latest coronavirus confinement. Around the corner, the Winged Victory of Samothrace floated quietly above a marble staircase, majestic in the absence of selfie-sticks and tour groups. In the Louvre's medieval basement, the Great Sphinx of Tanis loomed in the dark like a granite ghost from behind bars.