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- Two years after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece The Mona Lisa is recovered inside Italian waiter Vincenzo Peruggia’s hotel room in Florence.
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mona-lisa-recovered-in-florence
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Today, eight million people see the Mona Lisa every year. As soon as the painting was stolen in 1911, conspiracy theories sprouted up. Was it a hoax?
- 1911: The Mona Lisa is stolen. Part of the reason the Mona Lisa is known worldwide is because of its theft in 1911 by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.
- 1956: A rock is thrown at Leonardo’s masterpiece. In 1956, the Mona Lisa was vandalized not once but twice. First, a vandal attempted to take a razor blade to the painting, though no damage ended up being inflicted.
- 1974: While on tour, Leonardo’s painting is nearly damaged in Tokyo. The Mona Lisa has rarely ever left the Louvre, which may explain why 1.15 million people reportedly saw the painting when it traveled to the National Museum in Tokyo.
- 2009: La Gioconda is hit with a teacup. It was an otherwise ordinary day at the Louvre when, in 2009, a Russian woman came to the gallery that held the Mona Lisa at the time and smashed a teacup against the painting.
- The Painting Was Stolen by The Louvre’s Odd-Job Man, Vincenzo Peruggia
- The Theft Was Surprisingly Easy to Carry Out
- It Wasn’T Until The Following Day That Anyone Noticed The Painting Had Gone
- Pablo Picasso Was Considered A Suspect
- The Theft Became Global News and A Media Sensation
- Peruggia Attempted to Sell The Mona Lisa to The Uffizi Gallery in Florence
- Many Italians Were Glad to See The Mona Lisa Back in Its ‘True Home’
- The Mona Lisa Was Returned to The Louvre on 4 January 1914
- The Theft May Have Been Encouraged Or Masterminded by Eduardo de Valfierno
- Nat King Cole Covered The Song ‘Mona Lisa’ About The Painting in 1950
Vincenzo Peruggia moved to Paris in 1908, and worked as an odd-job man at the Louvre. He was also an Italian patriot who strongly believed that da Vinci’s Mona Lisa should be returned to his home country, Italy.
Whilst Peruggia planned to steal the painting, this was no intricately masterminded extraction. On 21 August 1911, Peruggia went to the museum through the workers door and dressed in the white smock worn by all employees. There is some debate as to whether he entered the museum the previous night to hide in a small cupboard until the museum closed,...
The museum was not heavily guarded overnight. Both staff and artists assumed the painting had been taken for cleaning or to be photographed. It was only after artist Louis Béroud, there to paint the Mona Lisa, asked a guard when the painting might be returned that enquiries began. When the realisation hit that the Mona Lisa really was gone (some 26...
The police were as baffled as everyone else as to who had stolen the painting. In their desperation to identify a culprit, it was thought that modernist enemies of traditional art must be involved. Guillaume Apollinaire, the avant-garde poet and playwright, was arrested and questioned for a week before being released. Pablo Picasso was the next pro...
The image of the Mona Lisa was distributed in newspapers far and wide when the crime was reported. Every major newspaper in Europe covered the story, and every story was illustrated with a reproduction of the painting. This led millions of people who might not have previously seen the painting, might never even have heard of it, to soon think they ...
Tired of sitting on the spoils of his heist, Vincenzo Peruggia attempted to sell the Mona Lisa several times. In November 1913, calling himself Leonardo Vincenzo, Peruggia wrote to an art dealer in Florence, Alfredo Geri, offering to bring him the painting for a 500,000 lire reward. The next month he made the trip and took the painting to Geri’s ga...
Peruggia had mistakenly believed that the Mona Lisa had been stolen from Florence by Napoleon, and felt he deserved a reward for doing his patriotic duty and returning it back to Italy. In fact, the portrait had come to France more than two centuries before Napoleon was born. Many Italians welcomed the painting home. People flocked to see it during...
The theft changed how the world saw the Mona Lisa. Peruggia’s act and the whirl of press attention that ensued, had transformed the Mona Lisa into one of the most recognisable and famous artworks in the world.
Valifierno was a con-man, said to have commissioned the French art forger Yves Chaudron to make copies of the painting which he could then sell as the missing original, increasing their value. Furthermore, Valfierno said Peruggia did not act alone. They had two accomplices who were needed to lift the painting, with its heavy protective container an...
The cover version of Mona Lisa by Nat King Cole was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1992. He described this song as one of his favourites among his recordings. Whilst the song does not reference the theft, it highlights how the event brought the painting so much fame, long after the event, which continues to this day. In 1962, the Mona Lis...
- Amy Irvine
Jul 17, 2019 · On August 21, 1911, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, today one of the most famous paintings in the world, was stolen right off the wall of the Louvre. It was such an inconceivable crime, that the Mona Lisa wasn't even noticed missing until the following day.
- Jennifer Rosenberg
Aug 19, 2016 · Using the alias “Leonard,” he sent a letter to a Florentine art dealer named Alfredo Geri and informed him that he had stolen the Mona Lisa and wanted to repatriate it to Italy.
Nov 18, 2013 · More than 100 years ago, in August 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen off the walls of the Louvre in Paris. The famous Leonardo da Vinci painting wasn't recovered until two years later, in December...
Vincenzo Peruggia steals the Mona Lisa on Monday 21st August, 1911. The Louvre is closed for cleaning and there are just 12 security guards on duty rather than the normal 116. He enters the...
