Joconde is the central database created in 1975 and now available online, maintained by the

French Ministry of Culture The Ministry of Culture (french: Ministère de la Culture) is the ministry of the Government of France in charge of national museums and the . Its goal is to maintain the French identity through the promotion and protection of the arts (visua ...

, for objects in the collections of the main French public and private museums listed as ''Musées de France'', according to article L. 441-1 of the ''Code du patrimoine'' amounting to more than 1,200 institutions. "La Joconde" is the French name of the ''

Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a Half length portrait, half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described ...

'', which like about half of the collections of the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

, is included in the database, as one of 295 items by, after, or connected with

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

; of these, only 42 works are by Leonardo da Vinci, including 6 paintings. By November 2012, Joconde contained over 475,000 object online and over 290,000 with images, from 366 collections in France, including 209,350 drawings, 63,547 paintings, 34,561 prints, 34,102 sculptures or 16,631 costumes and their accessories and is still expanding. By June 2022 it counted 636,405 objects. The database is not only dedicated to the information of the public but as well to the needs of the administrators and curators of the museums, thanks to the online presentation of professional tools to facilitate notably the museums collections cataloguing and state inventory (''récolement''). This explains the great precision of the listings. Since the museums participate on a voluntary basis to the regular enrichment of the database, some can present a large part of their collection, while others appear only because of the mere permanent deposits made by the first ones. Live on the French

Minitel The Minitel was a videotex online service accessible through telephone lines, and was the world's most successful online service prior to the World Wide Web. It was invented in Cesson-Sévigné, near Rennes in Brittany, France. The service w ...

system from 1992, the database went online in 1995. Originally just for objects from the fine arts and

decorative arts ] The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usual ...

, in 2004 Joconde was united with what had been separate databases for objects from archeology and

ethnology Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). ...

. It comes under the "Direction des Musées de France" (DMF) section of the Ministry. A small number of the best known objects have a prose commentary. Not all images are in colour, especially for the archaeological collections. When an object created after the mid-20th century has no image this is most often for copyright reasons. On the original database, the listing of 49 search criteria is highly structured, using a special vocabulary, which allows for very specific and accurate searches, helped as well by the index. Since July 9, 2019, Joconde is available on the Plateforme Ouverte du Patrimoine (POP), the general database of the ministry of culture, which gathers 8 databases and offers only 9 main advanced search criteria, but 3,976,845 objects, on 25 June 2022, including 253,677 drawings, 146,620 paintings or 226,777 sculptures. The former search page of Joconde is still available, but no more updated since 19 March 2019.Former search page of Joconde database
site joconde.

Notes

External links

POP Home page
{{Authority control Online databases Government databases in France 1975 establishments in France