4 ms·

It would likely be referring to a painting that not many people would have seen publicly. You're right, the Mona Lisa is a "rare" painting by definition, as the

It would likely be referring to a painting that not many people would have seen publicly. You're right, the Mona Lisa is a "rare" painting by definition, as there is only one of it amongst however many works of art exist. But because it's well known and seen publicly a lot, you wouldn't call it 'rare'. Though by my own definition, it means the scribbles on the side of my notepad are equally (if not more) rare. So disregard my comment as 5.30pm without enough caffeine nonsense.

Retric 9y ago
You could describe Mona Lisa as rare based on age. ~99% of existing paintings are probably younger, and ~99% of paintings painted in the same year are likely heavily degraded if not destroyed. Or even just having a vastly higher value than most things. After all few objects are worth significantly more than 100,000,000$. Or even just "A Rare example of a great masters work." which seems perfectly reasonable to me.