The Theft of the Mona Lisa

Want to know how much power one piece of art can possess? Consider this.

 In the year of 1911 the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. The thief acted swiftly and the piece was stolen one morning before the museum was open to visitors and when guards were not present. When the guards noticed it was missing they assumed the painting had been taken down for inspection and photographs. It wasn't until the day after the theft that museum officials finally noticed it was missing.

The French borders were shut down and departing cargo ships as well as any public transportation vehicle were searched. The museum didn't open until nine days later, the painting still hadn't been found. By this point the missing painting was front page news all around the world. People lined up by the thousands just to see the empty spot where the painting once stood.

This is were it starts getting crazy. A little after a week after the theft, a man named Joseph Gery Pieret presented himself to French officials with a small statue, claiming he had stolen items from the Louvre in previous years. Long story short, he claimed to be selling these pieces to none other than Pablo Picasso. Thinking that they had found a circle of crime that may be associated with the theft of the Mona Lisa, Picasso was brought in for questioning.

The accusations were true that Picasso had bought from Pieret. Though he denied it in court, Picasso almost certainly knew the two sculptures were lifted from the Louvre. Both Picasso and Pieret were let go free because prosecutors couldn't build a strong enough case that supported the two were involved with the theft.

Vincenzo Peruggia after he was taken into custody

Years passed and nothing had come up. Rumors arose that Mona Lisa was all around the world, from South America, to Switzerland, to New York. It turns out the piece had never even left France. The thief of the piece turned out to be Vincenzo Peruggia an Italian house painter and carpenter. He was arrested in Florence 1913. His hopes were to bring the piece back to Italy and enact revenge for Napoleon's large theft of artworks all across Europe.

Peruggia was able to steal the piece because he had once worked at the Louvre, he knew the exits and escape routes, as well the glass frame that encased the piece. He actually helped build the glass frame. Once he successfully had stolen the piece, it was placed in a closet in his apartment where it stayed for two years. He was caught when he tried to sell the Mona Lisa to a Florentine art dealer.

Because of Peruggia's patriotic reasoning for stealing the piece, he was considered a hero in the Italian press. His sentence was reduced, most likely due to the fact he was tried in Italy. The Mona Lisa was permitted to take an Italy tour before it returned to the Louvre. The publicity of the theft brought the piece to the status of fame. As one artists writes, "Mona Lisa left the Louvre a work of art, she returned an icon."