'Fake' Mona Lisa sells for USD 3.4 million

The painting sold about ten times its estimate at an online auction by Christie's Auction House in Paris, reported NHK World.

The reproduction is believed to have been painted in the early 1600s, about 100 years after the Mona Lisa, which hangs in the Paris Louvre.

Leonardo da Vinci created his work on a wood panel, while the replica is on canvas.

The copy has been dubbed the "Hekking Mona Lisa", after French art collector Raymond Hekking, who purchased it from an antique shop in 1950s, reported NHK World.

Hekking expended great effort in attempting to prove his acquisition was in fact the real Leonardo work.

Pierre Etienne of the auction house said global art experts may have judged the Hekking work to be not a genuine Leonardo, but the final bid set a record for a reproduction.

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is one of the most recognisable and famous works of art in the world, and also one of the most replicated and reinterpreted.