Chateau du Clos Luce
— — the last room the Mona Lisa knew.
Not only on a wall.
“A pink-brick manor on a low hill in Amboise, five hundred metres from the royal château along a path through the gardens. Leonardo da Vinci spent his last three years here, brought from Italy in 1516 by François I, with the Mona Lisa, the Saint John the Baptist, and the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne wrapped in his trunk. He died in the upper bedroom in May 1519. The rooms are kept as they were, more or less: a workshop, a chapel, the bed against the wall. The Loire light comes through the same windows. Tour groups come and go. The room stays quiet between them.
Chateau du Clos Luce, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
The Château du Clos Lucé stands on the Right Bank of the Loire in the town of Amboise, in the Indre-et-Loire department of the Centre-Val de Loire region of France. The manor sits 500 metres from the Royal Château d'Amboise, the two connected (by legend) through an underground passage used by King François I to visit Leonardo da Vinci. Built in 1471 of pink brick and pale tufa, the local Loire Valley stone, the manor was purchased by King Charles VIII in 1490 as a summer retreat for the royal family. The town of Amboise lies about 200 kilometres southwest of Paris, on the Loire River.
Leonardo da Vinci arrived at Clos Lucé in the autumn of 1516, having travelled from Italy at the invitation of King François I, who had named him 'Premier Painter, Architect and Engineer to the King.' He was 64. He brought three paintings with him in his trunks: the Mona Lisa, the Saint John the Baptist, and the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne. He spent his last three years in the manor's rooms, sketching, designing fêtes for the court, and continuing the notebooks. He died at Clos Lucé on 2 May 1519, in a bedroom on the upper floor. He was buried at the nearby Collégiale Saint-Florentin within the royal château grounds.
Clos Lucé is open every day of the year except 1 January and 25 December. Opening time is 9 AM in summer and 10 AM in winter; closing is between 6 PM and 8 PM depending on the season. The visit moves through the kitchen, the chapel, the bedroom where Leonardo died, and the study, then opens to the four-hectare park where forty large models of his inventions are arrayed: the parachute, the helical-air-screw, the armoured car, the swing bridge. The address is 2 Rue du Clos Lucé, 37400 Amboise, about a 400-metre walk uphill from the Royal Château d'Amboise. Tickets are timed and best booked through the official site.