Mona Lisa recreated with coffee

The different colours were created by adding no, little or lots of milk to each cup of black coffee.

It measures an impressive 20 feet high and 13 feet wide and took a team of eight people three hours to complete.

It was created for The Rocks Aroma Festival in Sydney, Australia, and seen by 130,000 people who attended the one-day coffee-lovers event.

Elaine Kelly, from event organisers the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, was delighted with the result.

She said: "Each coffee cup was filled with varying amounts of milk to create the different sepia shades of the painting.

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"Once we had the idea of creating an image out of coffee cups we searched for something iconic to reproduce - and opted for the most iconic painting in history.

"The Mona Lisa has been reproduced so many times in so many different mediums but, as far as we know, never out of coffee.

"The result was fantastic.

"After much planning it was great to see if coming together so well and the 130,000 people who attended the event certainly enjoyed it."

Mona Lisa, also known as La Gioconda, is the 16th century portrait painted in oil by Leonardo Da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance.

The work is owned by the French government and hangs in the Musee du Louvre in Paris, France, with the title Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo.

It measures 770 millimetres by 530 millimetres and has prompted debate for years over the reason for her famously enigmatic smile.

Extensive scrutiny using X-ray apparatus suggests that restoration work has resulted in the original being painted over three times. Telegraph