An online petition asks Jeff Bezos to buy the Mona Lisa to eat it

The official reason is "because no one has ever eaten the Mona Lisa before": but even the almighty CEO of Amazon has limits

(photo: Unsplash) Why should someone buy and then eat the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci - admitted and far from granted that it is possible to buy it? Apparently none, but on Change.org - the world's largest platform for petitions - there is one that collects signatures to ask Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and richest man in the world, to do so. In fact, there is a reason for the request on the campaign page. This: “No one has ever eaten the Mona Lisa and we feel that Jeff Bezos has to take a stand and make that happen.”

The petition started getting attention last week and has received more than 12,200 subscriptions up to now. The curious thing - one among many, let's say - is that the campaign is not new: it was launched a year ago by Kane Powell, a musician from Maryland. Powell explained to Vice how the idea was born. He was with some friends at the bar talking about Bezos, when he said that Mr. Amazon should buy the most famous painting in the world "just because he has the money to do it", thus demonstrating that he can basically do what he wants.

Among the comments under the petition, many are ironic or amused. Someone writes that Bezos should do it to "save the world", another advises Bezos to roll up the canvas and swallow it whole. Some users claim to have signed up to bring to light the distortions of modern capitalism "nobody should be that rich".

But how much would it cost Bezos to buy the Mona Lisa? Last year, French manager Stéphane Distinguin suggested to Vice that the painting could be sold for $ 60 billion. It would be more than 100 times the maximum price ever paid for a work of art, held by the controversial Salvator Mundi, also attributed to Leonardo. For Bezos, who has a net worth of $ 200 billion, it would be a steep bill but, all in all, he could afford it.

Even if he succeeds in buying the canvas on display in the Louvre, for Bezos the difficulty would begin in that moment. As Amy Adler, an expert in art law and professor at New York University School of Law, explained to the New York Times, the act of eating works of art could be part of "the tradition of destroying art as a way of creating art", but with the Mona Lisa it would not be so simple.

Da Vinci in fact painted the famous portrait on a thin-grained tree board and covered it with a thick layer of white lead primer, a substance toxic if ingested. The artist also used pigments in his palettes made of silica, iron oxide, tin oxide and bone dust, among others. It wouldn't be a healthy dinner for Bezos.

While waiting for Bezos to make a decision, or for him to choose cheaper and more eatable canvases, the petition continues to attract signatories.


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Amazon Art Internet Jeff Bezos globalData.fldTopic = "Amazon, Art, Internet , Jeff Bezos "

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