The Mona Lisa, Leonardo, c. 1503-1506, 30"x 21", Oil on Wood, the Louvre, Paris, France
On the night of August 21 1911, the Mona Lisa disappeared from the walls of the Louvre, apparently stolen by someone who had hidden in the museum overnight and hurried off with the painting the next morning, persuading a plumber to let them out.
The masterpiece did not reappear until December 1913, when a young man bedecked with a splendid moustache turned up at the office of an art dealer in Florence. He claimed to have brought the Mona Lisa to Florence from Paris in order to restore the painting to its rightful home in Italy. The apparent patriot also requested a 500,000 lire reward for his hard work (a not insignificant amount, although, as visitors to Italy pre-euro will vouch, the lire was always a currency which enjoyed confounding currency conversion with its delayed decimal place).
The dealer was understandably bemused, but intrigued, and an inspection of the painting at the young gentleman's hotel was arranged with the director of the Uffizi gallery. To the great surprise of the dealer and the director, it really was Da Vinci's masterpiece.
Soon the police were called, and the "patriot", Vincenzo Perugia was arrested. At his trial Perugia maintained it was an act of patriotism, not financial greed, that drove him to take the painting. The Italian public quickly adopted Perugia as a national hero and admirers dispatched hundreds of letters and gifts to his prison cell...
- "Mona Lisa's theft set the blueprint for art crime", excerpt of blog post by Hugo Gorst-Williams, www.guardian.co.uk
What other masterpieces have been stolen, recovered, or destroyed? What's missing now? How and why was it stolen? How was it recovered?
The web site, guardian.co.uk, offers a sub site for news about art thefts and thieves, artwork recovered, ongoing investigations and related information.
Link "Mona Lisa's theft set the blueprint for art crime", Full Text
Link Art and Design, Art Thefts at www.guardian.co.uk
