If you can’t afford a ticket to Paris, LEGO can help bring the City of Lights to you with its two newest sets. The first one is Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, which comes complete with a gold frame for art lovers to display on a wall, seamlessly fitting it with other framed pieces. Along with the Renaissance masterpiece, LEGO is also releasing a recreation of the Notre Dame cathedral in its pre-2019 fire state. Together, these sets will make Francophiles feel like they have a front-row private viewing of the massively popular tourist attractions. LEGO’s latest launch is to celebrate the French capital’s momentous 2024. Starting July 26, Paris will host the 2024 Summer Olympics and the 2024 Paralympics, making it only the second city after London to host the Summer Olympics three times, having previously done so in 1900 and 1924. Also fittingly, the beloved Gothic cathedral Notre-Dame is scheduled to reopen to the public in December, after five years of painstaking reconstruction.
The LEGO Art Mona Lisa will feature 1,503 pieces, using new hues to reflect what a freshly painted Mona Lisa would have looked like 500 years ago. LEGO designed its drum-lacquered gold frame to be detachable, allowing for multiple display options. The designer, Milan Madge, notes, “A culmination of Da Vinci’s lifelong study of science and nature, the Mona Lisa is packed with stories and details that we thoroughly enjoyed researching and implementing.” The portrait is part of a series of interpretations of artworks, including Hokusai’s The Great Wave and an open-ended set to create an abstract modernist piece. Once you’ve duplicated the world’s most valuable and visited work of art, you can take a journey through 800 years of history with the Notre Dame de Paris set. According to designer Rok Žgalin Kobe, LEGO has designed this set to “bring it to life by not only capturing its outward appearance but the way and the stages in which the original was built.” It will feature 4,383 pieces and an easily removable roof to appreciate the interior details. The Mona Lisa set is available for pre-order, shipping in October 2024, while the small-scale Notre Dame set is available for pre-order and will ship on June 1, 2024.
