Two Da Vinci's "Giocondes", a newly made face of the sphinx and other secrets of world art

After all, Socrates was an intelligent man. "I know I don't know anything"—how true that is. You can live for a thousand years, but you still won't comprehend even one percent of the knowledge accumulated by mankind. Even the most famous paintings, sculptures and architectural objects in the world always have something to surprise the curious.

Many artists have tried to reproduce the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci. But among the "analogues" of "Gioconda" there is one special painting — "The Iselworth Mona Lisa". For a long time it was believed that this was an ordinary late copy, until in 2013 the staff of the Mona Lisa Foundation in Zurich came to the conclusion that this was an early version belonging to the brush of da Vinci himself. Although this is widely disputed in the art community.

Gustave Eiffel, the creator of the main symbol of Paris, has arranged a small apartment on the upper tier of the tower: a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom and two bedrooms. Here the architect rested, admiring the stunning view, and received guests. Now it is a museum where you can see wax figures of Eiffel and Thomas Edison, who occasionally looked in to his friend.

As you know, the Statue of Liberty was presented to the United States by the French in honor of the centennial of the American Revolution. It symbolizes democracy, equality and the denial of slave labor. This message is contained, in particular, in a broken chain lying on a pedestal. An interesting detail, but most tourists do not notice it.

It took a long time for the designers of the Golden Gate Bridge to coordinate the plan with the US Navy. When permission was finally obtained, the navy demanded that the bridge be painted in black and yellow stripes. So, they say, it will be visible during fog. In the end, architect Irving Morrow managed to agree on a dark orange color. In this design, the bridge is pleasant to look at, and in bad weather it is clearly visible.

The Great Sphinx near the city of Giza is the oldest preserved sculpture on earth. Initially, it was covered with bright paint - small fragments were preserved behind the right ear. In addition, the sphinx had a nose and beard (remnants of its former greatness are kept in British and Egyptian museums). And some experts are convinced that the human face was carved much later than the sculpture was built. Allegedly, in the beginning, the sphinx had the head of a lion or a dog. This explains why the head is so small compared to the proportions of the body.

Rembrandt began painting Danae (kept in the Hermitage) two years after his marriage to Saskia van Eilenburch. The artist dearly loved his young wife and often depicted her on his canvases. Saskia also posed for Danae. 

For a long time it remained a mystery why the resemblance to Saskia is not as obvious as in other paintings by the artist of the 1630s, and the style he used in places resembles the creations of a later period of his work. It was only in the middle of the last century that the answer was found. On X-rays, the resemblance to Rembrandt's wife is more pronounced. It turns out that the painting was changed after Saskia's death, when Rembrandt was in an intimate relationship with Gertje Dirks. Danae's facial features in the painting were changed in such a way that they combined both of the artist's favorite women.

Actually, Big Ben is not the name of the entire clock tower of the Palace of Westminster, but only the big bell inside it. Until September 2012, this structure was officially called the Bell Tower of the Palace of Westminster (The Bell Tower of the Palace of Westminster), and now it is called The Elizabeth Tower. 

No one will say exactly why the bell was called Big Ben. According to one version, it was the nickname of the man who ran the foundry where the bell was cast. According to another version, for some reason the bell was named after the heavyweight boxer Benjamin Count.