It is one of the most tantalising – and entertaining – puzzles in art, stretching from the Louvre to the Loire via, well, Norfolk. And our critic thinks he has just worked it out

Increased security after the recent heist has made the queues at the Louvre even slower, yet on this rainswept, very wintry morning, no one grumbles. After all, the Mona Lisa is waiting inside for all these tourists who have come from the world over. Leonardo da Vinci’s woman – swathed in dark cloth and silk, smiling enigmatically as she sits in front of a landscape of rocks, road and water – draws crowds like no other painting. But if the Mona Lisa can attract such attention fully clothed, what would the queues be like if she was nude?

Strangely, this is not just amusing speculation – because in 18th-century Britain, she was. An engraving issued by a publisher called John Boydell gave libertine Georgians the opportunity to hang “Joconda” in their boudoir. It must have been popular because many copies survive. This Mona Lisa sits in a chair with her hands crossed in front of a fading view of distant rock formations. And, like the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, she smiles enigmatically. But there is one key difference. She is naked from the waist up.

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© Photograph: Album/Alamy

© Photograph: Album/Alamy

© Photograph: Album/Alamy

With strong showings for Ryan Coogler’s Sinners and target hit for 50% female directors, criticism that has dogged the prizes in recent years may have been headed off

For now, the Bafta film awards appears to have headed off further criticism over its long-running diversity crisis after revealing its longlists on Friday.

Despite Bafta overhauling its awards voting system in 2020 after claims of “systemic racism”, outrage re-emerged in 2023 after no people of colour won awards. The longlists, which are an intermediate stage on the way to the final nominations with each category determined by different mixes of membership voting and jury selection, suggest that some progress is being made.

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© Photograph: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

© Photograph: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

© Photograph: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

As the Gerard Butler film Greenland 2 becomes one more addition to the list of action movies to tamper with the Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty or Golden Gate bridge, isn’t it time they mixed it up a bit?

Realistically there was never going to be a good time to release a sequel to 2020’s Greenland. This is partly because Greenland was one of those films in which Gerard Butler runs around looking as if he’s desperately trying to hold in a whopper of a fart. However, releasing a film about Americans focusing all their effort on Greenland at this precise moment in time feels a little on the nose.

Also, and hopefully this isn’t a spoiler, but it’s weird to make Greenland 2 when the entire world was destroyed at the end of Greenland 1. In that film, you will remember, Butler and his family had to get to Greenland because the planet was about to be pummelled by meteors.

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© Photograph: REUTERS

© Photograph: REUTERS

© Photograph: REUTERS

The Secret Traitor twist was recently introduced in the UK-version of the hit series

© Euan Cherry/Peacock

© PA Archive

2026 is already shaping up to be a huge year for the small screen. From the long-awaited return of Euphoria to a live-action Blade Runner series, there’s no shortage of ambitious TV on the horizon.

© The Independent/HBO

‘Hamnet’, ‘Sinners’ and Timothée Chalamet’s ‘Marty Supreme’ have also notched up an impressive amount of mentions on the list

After a career of playing dashing gents, the Irish actor has transformed himself to play the late boxing trainer Brendan Ingle in ‘Giant’, a biopic of the boxing legend ‘Prince’ Naseem Hamad. He and actor Amir El-Masry speak to Adam White about self-belief, self-doubt and why early retirement was never on the cards for them

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Comedian said he did not want to ‘put anyone at risk’ as demonstrators clash with federal agents in large-scale protests across the city

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Study of man often featured in works by the Flemish master reveals hidden painting of woman beneath model’s beard

Is it a bald elderly man with a big bushy beard and a wine-addled stare? Or a friendly young woman with flowing locks and a crown of braids?

To Belgian art dealer Klaas Muller, an answer to that question mattered less than the fact that this particular take on the duck-rabbit optical illusion was painted by one Peter Paul Rubens.

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© Photograph: Peter Paul Rubens/Klaas Muller/Brafa Art Fair

© Photograph: Peter Paul Rubens/Klaas Muller/Brafa Art Fair

© Photograph: Peter Paul Rubens/Klaas Muller/Brafa Art Fair

[Deal du jour] Si vous n'avez pas encore mis la patte sur le nouveau Donkey Kong, exclusif à la Switch 2, c'est le moment. Le jeu profite d'une belle baisse de prix pour les soldes.

La saison 4 de La Chronique des Bridgerton revient bientôt sur Netflix. Le scénario, qui va rapprocher Benedict de Sophie, s'annonce comme une version revisitée du conte de Cendrillon. Même la belle-mère fait partie de l'histoire... Mais Lady Araminta Gun ne sera probablement pas la méchante de l'histoire à laquelle on s'attend.

Vous avez encore de nombreuses questions après avoir dévoré le grand final de Stranger Things, mis en ligne le 1er janvier 2026 sur Netflix ? Vous n'êtes pas les seuls. Mais visiblement, les créateurs de la série fantastique avaient justement tout prévu.

An afterlife sitcom, an angry penguin, tossed salad and scrambled eggs, and a Corby trouser press … our writers pick the shows they would happily watch on a loop for ever

I love every character and every aspect of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. There isn’t a weak link in the cast and they work together as seamlessly and apparently joyfully as you could wish.

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© Photograph: Gale Adler/Paramount/Getty Images

© Photograph: Gale Adler/Paramount/Getty Images

© Photograph: Gale Adler/Paramount/Getty Images

Our cookbook of the week is A Kitchen in Italy by Mimi Thorisson. Read More

From the V&A to the Stranger Things finale, the pop icon still looms large – but with lower streaming figures than his peers, how many new listeners are discovering his music?

• ‘A perplexing, astonishing finale’: world pays tribute to David Bowie a decade after his death

When David Bowie died on 10 January 2016, such was the scale of media coverage and public mourning that one would have presumed his music would be everywhere for ever, elevated as he was, to misquote Smash Hits, to the position of the People’s Dame. It was briefly – Starman reached No 18, and Space Oddity No 24 – but then it wasn’t.

Each year, Forbes compiles a posthumous celebrity rich list. Bowie appeared in 2016, ranked at No 11 with estimated earnings of $10.5m (£7.8m), and again in 2017, in the same position but with earnings of $9.5m (£7m). This was unsurprising given the enormous spike in interest there is in the immediate aftermath of a superstar’s death. Yet he didn’t appear in the Forbes list again until 2022, when he was at No 3 with earnings of $250m (£195m) – the highest-ranked musician that year – but that was almost all attributable to the sale of his music publishing rights to Warner Chappell.

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© Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

© Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

© Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Godfall by Van Jensen; The Salt Bind by Rebecca Ferrier; The Poet Empress by Shen Tao; A Hole in the Sky by Peter F Hamilton; Hello Earth, Are You There? by Brian Aldiss

Godfall by Van Jensen (Bantam, £20)
The debut novel by a popular comic-book writer is set in a small town in Nebraska, after the landing of a three-mile-long alien figure dubbed “the Giant”. Local sheriff David Blunt is struggling to do his job following the sudden boom in population: in addition to scientists, government agents and soldiers at the highly classified research area established around the mystery from outer space, many more enthusiasts flood to the town, possibly including a serial killer. Two people have been killed in a horrifically brutal way when the FBI takes over and tries to shut him out. But when the next victim is a man he’s known all his life, Blunt is more determined than ever to catch the killer. His investigation draws him to infiltrate a doomsday cult and to discover more about the tangled lives of the people he grew up with, along with the possibility that there could be a clue in the physical composition of the Giant. A suspenseful, well-written blend of science fiction and serial killer thriller.

The Salt Bind by Rebecca Ferrier (Renegade, £18.99)
In 1770s Cornwall, Kensa’s father was hanged as a smuggler, and she now feels a despised outsider, especially in contrast to her quiet half-sister. Only when the local wise woman, Isolde, accepts Kensa as her apprentice can she imagine a future in which she could be respected as a healer. But there’s more than useful potions and a helpful dose of trickery to the role: the wise women of Cornwall are responsible for making sure an ancient pact between land-dwellers and the creatures of the sea continues to hold. Kensa has learned little of the Old Ways when she must suddenly act alone. She has seen Isolde summon the Father of Storms from under the sea, but when she does the same, she finds she has made a horrifying bargain. If she can’t put things right, the sea will rise and drown the whole area. A moving exploration of sisterhood and community, this is an evocatively written folkloric fantasy.

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© Photograph: Fairfax Media Archives/Fairfax Media/Getty Images

© Photograph: Fairfax Media Archives/Fairfax Media/Getty Images

© Photograph: Fairfax Media Archives/Fairfax Media/Getty Images