The Theft of the Mona Lisa

* For an explanation of why the Mona Lisa is famous, see here.

The year of 1911 was during the tail end of the Belle Époque, or the “Beautiful Era.” France was relatively peaceful during this year but there was tension between France, Germany, and Italy. This time period ended with the start of World War I. Other events included the ‘Scramble for Africa’ (an ongoing European colonization for the entire continent in which tensions between European empires were transferred from Africa to Europe), the Chinese and Mexican Revolutions were occurring and The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire happened in New York City. The race for the South Pole, between Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott, took up most of the headlines for the year, captivating newspaper audiences around the world. Also, Hiram Bingham III published the location of Machu Picchu to a non-Peruvian audience and Madame Marie Curie won her second Nobel Prize, in chemistry, for the discovery of the elements radium and polonium.

It was also the year that the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre.

Mona Lisa au Louvre (1911) by Louis Béroud (1852-1930)Via Wikipedia. — *Mona Lisa au Louvre* (1911) by Louis Béroud (1852-1930)
Via Wikipedia.

The Louvre Museum is located in Paris, France. It’s a former palace but currently a museum that houses art and artifacts from France and the rest of the world. During the Belle Époque, Paris was a center for the arts and sciences making the Louvre an important center of education and attraction. Many of the artworks were acquired through the collections of French kings and through conquests of the French Empire. At the time, the Louvre had over 1,000 rooms over 45 acres and over 250,000 objects. The problem was that the museum had less than 150 guards. This meant that artworks did go missing or get damaged.

In the late summer of 1911, Paris was scorching. The countryside was burning due to the dry conditions and the temperature was constantly above ninety degrees Fahrenheit (around 32 degrees Celsius). The Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo da Vinci around 1503, hung in the Salon Carré (Square Salon) which was located at the east end of the Grande Galerie. The Mona Lisa hung between Titian’s Allegory of Alfonso d’Avalos and Correggio’s Mystical Marriage but the room held another Da Vinci, one other Correggio, one Giorgione, one Tintoretto, two other Titians, two Raphaels, three Veronese, a Rubens, a Rembrandt and a Velázquez to round it out. Quite honestly, the Mona Lisa was neither the most famous nor the most visited piece in the museum. It wasn’t even the most famous artwork in the room.

The Theft

The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine with Saint Sebastian( 1526-1527) by CorreggioVia Wikipedia — The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine with Saint Sebastian( 1526-1527) by Correggio
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The theft was thought to have occurred on the morning of August 21, 1911—a Monday, when the museum was closed—allegedly by one man. Supposedly this man had been hiding in a storage closet since Sunday (the busiest day for the Louvre) so that he wouldn’t have had to go through security the next day. The man wore an artist’s smock as a disguise, which was the uniform of the museum’s maintenance staff. They did this to show that they were of a higher level than other workers. The closet the thief emerged from was one of many small rooms throughout the Louvre, that were often used as storage for extra canvases, easels, and other art supplies.

Some of the confusion over the number of thieves has to do with the weight of the Mona Lisa. Months before the theft, the museum had a wooden brace and glass-fronted box created for the painting. This added about 150 pounds (about 68 kg) of weight. The frame, a Renaissance creation, added 50 pounds (about 23 kg) more. The painting itself is about 18 pounds (about 8 kg) on three slabs of wood. This would make it impossible to roll up like a canvas. The Mona Lisa was attached to the wall by four hooks which were a fire prevention measure to allow the guards to easily remove it from the wall in case of a fire. The thief removed the painting from the wall and carried it to the nearest stairwell, where he removed the glass case, the brace, and the frame. The actual painting was small enough for the man to carry it under his smock.

The thief tried to make his exit but became stuck at a locked door on the first floor. A plumber, named Sauvet, came upon him and offered to help the man exit. Sauvet believed the man to be a museum employee because of the clothes. The doorway opened into the courtyard called the Cour du Spinx. The thief made his way through another courtyard and another gallery, passing the empty guard post before landing on the streets of Paris. Sauvet was the only person to see the thief (and he only saw one man).

The blank wall where the Mona Lisa was hung, after the theft, in August 1911. On one side is Titian’s Allegory of Alfonso d’Avalos and on the other side is Correggio’s Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine.Via Wikipedia — The blank wall where the Mona Lisa was hung, after the theft, in August 1911. On one side is Titian’s *Allegory of Alfonso d’Avalos* and on the other side is Correggio’s *Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine*.
Via Wikipedia

The Allegory of Alfonso D’Avalos (c. 1610, c. 1690) by Titian. This is the version from the Royal Collection in the United Kingdom.Via Wikipedia — The Allegory of Alfonso D’Avalos (c. 1610, c. 1690) by Titian. This is the version from the Royal Collection in the United Kingdom.
Via Wikipedia

The museum was open the next day, Tuesday, August 22, 1911. A painter, named Louis Beroud, made his way to the Salon Carré because he was working on a painting of his own. Beroud wished to paint a scene showing a young French girl fixing her hair in the reflection from the new pane of glass that had been placed in front of the Mona Lisa. The museum had been placing panes of glass in front of several of their works of art to protect them and the pubic found the effect too reflexive. Upon entering the Salon Carré he looked for the Mona Lisa, which had hung in the room for the past five years, but couldn’t find it. Beroud asked the guard, Maximilien Paupardin, where the painting had gone and was told it was most likely with the museum photographers. This was not uncommon as the museum’s photographers were allowed to take any work they needed to their studios at any time.

When the painting still wasn’t back around eleven that morning, Beroud asked Paupardin to inquire with the photographers. The photographers said that they had not taken the picture and had no idea where it was, this led the museum to raise an alarm and begin a search of the museum. When the painting could not be located they called the police.

The art style during the end of the Belle Époque was a mix of several different movements from the tail end of the Art Nouveau to the beginnings of Art Deco, Expressionism and Cubism. For the average person, the most famous art in the western world was most likely Raphael’s Sistine Madonna. While the Mona Lisa was known, especially in literati circles, it was not the most famous artwork in the Louvre. The painting was famous in literati circles most likely because in 1869, a critic named Walter Pater wrote about her beauty and his critique is referenced many times over in the English speaking world because other poets and artists read Pater’s work. For the general public, the Mona Lisa wasn’t that memorable. For instance, a book published in 1890 about Italian artists barely gave the Mona Lisa any attention, instead focusing on Leonardo da Vinci’s other works (da Vinci’s section begins on page 26, Mona Lisa is mentioned at page 46).

What made the Mona Lisa famous was the press coverage that the theft. Every major newspaper followed the story with pictures. This gave the millions of people reading about the theft an image of the Mona Lisa to millions of people. These people might not have been able to afford to go to Paris or perhaps had no previous knowledge of art. The press coverage of the theft, the search, and the discovery was akin to a two-year multi-billion dollar ad campaign.

Sistine Madonna (1512) by RaphaelVia Wikipedia — Sistine Madonna (1512) by Raphael
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The museum director, Théophile Homolle, was on vacation so the curator of Egyptian Antiquities was informed about the possible theft of the Mona Lisa. He called the Parisian Police shortly after noon. The police sent over sixty investigators. An hour later, the police found the glass, the wooden case, and the frame that encased the Mona Lisa in the stairwell. The frame was donated by the Comtesse de Béarn two years earlier and luckily it had not been damaged. The police shut down the museum in order to question the staff.

When the police questioned the staff, they discovered that one worker remembered seeing the Mona Lisa around seven in the morning on Monday but noticed it missing an hour later. He was not concerned because he assumed that officials had removed it. They also discovered that the normal security guard that patrolled the area that included the Salon Carré had taken the day off to stay with a sick child. The replacement guard had taken a smoke break around eight in the morning. The thought was that the theft occurred between seven and eight-thirty on Monday morning. Since the Louvre was closed on Monday, the police focused their questioning on the Louvre staff. This encompassed around eight hundred people, but very little was learned. Sauvet, the plumber who had let the thief out, was asked to look through photographs of museum employees but he could not identify anyone.

The police brought Alphonse Bertillon, a leading criminologist and fingerprint expert, in on the case. Fingerprinting was a new technique and fingerprint matching was done by hand. Bertillon found a thumbprint on the Mona Lisa’s frame but the police could not match it to any of their files. The police had the French border sealed and all departed ships and trains searched for the painting—nothing was found.

The news coverage was scant on the first day. The Parisian newspapers kept silent, waiting to see what the Louvre would say. Tuesday, later in the day, the Louvre made a public announcement about the theft of the painting. This started the news frenzy. Quickly the story spread worldwide, becoming a front-page story around the world. Daily newspapers were still a new phenomenon in 1911. Not every paper was quite sure what the Mona Lisa looked like, The Washington Post published a picture of the nude Salai painting, the Mona Vanna. In Paris, wanted posters were hung on public walls, crowds showed up to the police stations to hear any news and when the Louvre re-opened nine days later, thousands lined up to see the blank space on the wall where the painting had hung.

The theft continued to inspire newspaper stories for weeks; any report on the case, no matter how trivial, found its way into print. Some were larger in scope, as the thought that the Germans stole the painting to dishearten the country or to deflect from other international issues. Some thought the theft was to shame the Louvre for lax security. A popular theory was that the painting’s disappearance had been orchestrated as a “theft for hire” for an American millionaire. J. P. Morgan was often fingered as the new owner of the Mona Lisa, Morgan denied any connection to the theft.

The Search

A photograph of Guillaume Apollinaire, in his soldier’s uniform after his shrapnel wound to the temple (1916).Via Wikipedia — A photograph of Guillaume Apollinaire, in his soldier’s uniform after his shrapnel wound to the temple (1916).
Via Wikipedia

The Paris paper, Le Journal, had offered a reward for information about the theft and Honoré Joseph Géry Pieret showed up to their office with a statuette. The paper ran a story on the statuette, which Pieret had claimed was stolen from the Louvre. The police quickly moved to question Pieret and he claimed the theft of the statuette -and others- was orchestrated by Apollinaire. Pieret had worked as a secretary to Apollinaire for a few years. The police had stumbled upon a small crime ring of art thieves, but not one attached to the Mona Lisa.

Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet and critic. The police arrested him seventeen days after the Mona Lisa was stolen, but for his connection to the theft of the statues. After questioning, he admitted that his friend, Pablo Picasso was connected. Apollinaire was held for a week in La Santé prison. Apollinaire would later enlist in the French army during World War I, where he was injured from shrapnel in 1916. He died two years later in 1918 at the age of 38.

Pablo Picasso was friends with Apollinaire during the statuette thefts and might have had more to do with the theft of the statues because two of the Iberian stone statues were models for his painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Picasso and Apollinaire were part of an avant-garde group of poets and artists that had a disgust of art often found in museums like the Louvre. Apollinaire had a reputation as a provocateur, once calling for the Louvre to be burned to the ground.

Picasso denied knowing Apollinaire when he was brought in for questioning. This was most likely because Picasso was a foreigner in France and was worried about deportation. Also, his career was beginning to transition into a richer, more upscale clientele. A scandal connected to the most important story of the day would not have been good for him.

A photograph of Pablo Picasso, in front of his painting The Aficionado at Villa les Clochettes, Sorgues, France (1912).Via Wikipedia — A photograph of Pablo Picasso, in front of his painting *The Aficionado* at Villa les Clochettes, Sorgues, France (1912).
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The French public was furious about the lack of forward momentum with the investigation. The police were seen as ineffectual, rage was directed at the museum for its relaxed security, and the director of the Louvre, Théophile Homolle, was fired upon his return from Mexico. Some of the fury was over the confusing lack of motive for the theft, even the assistant curator Monsieur Bénédite was bemused, saying, “Why the theft was committed is a mystery to me, as I consider the picture valueless in the hands of a private individual.” The police continued to look for the painting, they printed and sent off 6,500 copies of a photograph throughout Paris and to other museums. They were hoping to generate leads and to help museums compare possible forgeries.

The Louvre left the space where the Mona Lisa hung empty. The missing painting was more famous in absentia than when it had hung in the Salon Carré before. The Louvre eventually placed a reproduction of the Mona Lisa in the empty space but by December 1912, a year later, the museum placed a painting by Raphael in its place. The painting, titled Baldassare Castiglione, is a portrait of a man.

The Discovery

Nothing definitive was ever heard about the Mona Lisa for two years. This wasn’t too shocking as stolen art can be difficult to dispose of and is rarely stolen to order. Instead, most stolen art is used as collateral for other illegal items (drugs, trafficked people or arms) or in place of money in order to mask illegal transactions. The Mona Lisa, now one of the most famous faces in the world at the time, was too dangerous to sell—even on a dark market—it was unsaleable just like Monsieur Bénédite had predicted. It had been twenty-eight months since the Mona Lisa had been stolen from the Louvre.

The Mona Lisa in Florence (1913)Via Wikipedia — The *Mona Lisa* in Florence (1913)
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An art dealer located in Florence, Italy named Alfredo Geri had placed an advert in a number of Italian newspapers stating that he was “a buyer at good prices of art objects of every sort." He soon received a letter from a man self-titled “Leonardo” in November 1913. The letter writer claimed to be in possession of the Mona Lisa and wished to return the painting to her (and da Vinci’s) homeland. The letter was sent from Paris, France and Geri responded asking “Leonardo” to come to Florence with the painting. They communicated back and forth until Geri convinced “Leonardo” to come to Florence with the painting, if it was the Mona Lisa, Geri would pay 500,000 lire for “expenses.” In December 1913, ”Leonardo” arrived in Florence, most likely hoping to finally be able to sell the stolen painting. He checked into the Tripoli-Italia hotel in Florence. He was 5 ft 3 in tall, with dark hair and a waxed mustache.

Geri had contacted Giovanni Poggi, the director of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, when “Leonardo” first contacted him in case the real thief was communicating with him. In December 1913, Geri and Poggi made their way to the hotel to meet with “Leonardo” under the guise that Poggi was there to authenticate the painting.

“Leonardo” was staying on the third floor and he invited Geri and Poggi to his room in order to see the painting. “Leonardo” pulled a trunk out and after rummaging through it, produced the painting from the bottom. Poggi claimed that he needed to take the painting back to the Uffizi for verification.

In the aftermath of the theft, the Louvre had sent out photos of the Mona Lisa to other museums in hope that, if found, other museums could authenticate the painting. Other than a visual resemblance, the painting would have the seal of the Louvre on the back, other marks on the back (like the catalogue number) and craquelure. Craquelure is the pattern of minuscule cracks that form in older paintings and can be difficult to fake. Poggi was taking the painting back to the Uffizi to check against the photograph. Once he confirmed that the painting was the actual Mona Lisa and not a fake, the Italian police were contacted.

“Leonardo” was arrested in his hotel room by the Italian police that very same day. “Leonardo” was a pseudonym of Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian man who had been living in Paris and working at the Louvre.

The Louvre was contacted and made a statement on December 12, 1913, only saying that they had heard the painting was recovered but they were waiting to see the painting in person. The next day, December 13, the Italian government made an official announcement in which they confirmed the recovery of the painting. There was a concern in France about the possible repatriation of the prized painting but it was decided that Italy would return the painting to France after it toured through Italy for a small time. The Mona Lisa was re-hung on the wall of the Salon Carré on January 4, 1914. In the days that followed, more than 100,000 people visited the painting.

The Mona Lisa, in the Uffizi Gallery, in 1913. Giovanni Poggi is on the right.Via Wikipedia — The *Mona Lisa*, in the Uffizi Gallery, in 1913. Giovanni Poggi is on the right.
Via Wikipedia

The Trial

After his arrest, Peruggia was taken to the city jail until his trial. Vincenzo Peruggia did not fit the overly-romantic persona the public had given to art thieves. He grew up in Dumenza, Italy, the son of a bricklayer. He left Italy at the age of 25 with his two brothers, eventually settling in the 10th Arrondissement in Paris. He worked as a carpenter and house painter.

Peruggia was hired by the glazier firm Cobier to be part of a team of workers that were creating the cases that would protect thousands of paintings at the Louvre. He worked at the Louvre from 1910 to 1911. After stealing the painting, he hid the Mona Lisa in a false bottom of his wooden trunk which he kept in his room at a boardinghouse. The painting never left Paris until Peruggia took it to Florence in 1913. He was described as impetuous and hot-tempered, a victim of harassment from his co-workers. In court, Peruggia claimed to suffer through jingoistic comments from French people.

Peruggia’s mugshot.Via Wikipedia — Peruggia’s mugshot.
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He was interviewed by Parisian police, in November 1911, when they interviewed all employees of the Louvre. He claimed innocence of the theft and gave his alibi as being drunk the night before—thus being too hungover to be the thief. Peruggia did have a record with the Parisian police, having been arrested twice. Once for attempting to rob a prostitute and then for carrying a gun during a physical fight. When he was arrested, his fingerprints were taken, as were other arrested persons. Unfortunately for the Parisian police, they took only his right-hand fingerprints. The fingerprints left at the Louvre were from Peruggia’s left hand.

His trial started on June 4, 1914. Peruggia had admitted his guilt, so at this time the trial was more of an inquisition to determine his length of sentence. The trial took place in a large room in the Palazzo Vecchio. Peruggia claimed at various times that he stole the Mona Lisa because he was an Italian patriot who wanted to return the Mona Lisa to her home country. Many Italian works of art were looted during Napoleon’s invasions a century or so before. While this claim gave him approbation with many Italian citizens, it didn’t apply to the Mona Lisa as the painting was taken to France by Leonardo da Vinci. Upon da Vinci’s death, King François I bought the painting from da Vinci’s estate.

Before contacting Geri, Perrugia reportedly first tried to sell the painting to a London art dealer, making his patriotic claim delusive. He had also written to his parents, saying that he would soon be a wealthy man. Most likely, the real reason that Perrugia stole the Mona Lisa was that it was small enough to carry. He had admitted in the trial that he had looked at other Italian paintings first. He hoped to sell whichever painting he stole for a large sum because the house painting he was doing in France was making him sick with lead poisoning.

Vincenzo Peruggia during the trial (1913). Via Wikipedia — Vincenzo Peruggia during the trial (1913).

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Vincent Peruggia was found guilty by a jury in August 1914. The judge gave a sentence of one year and fifteen days in jail. His sentence was later reduced to time served, seven months and nine days. Meanwhile, Alfredo Geri was awarded 25,000 francs for the return of the Mona Lisa. The French government awarded him the Légion d'honneur (Legion of Honor).

Peruggia’s release and later life was not of interest to the newspapers and people of Europe because World War I had broken out. After serving in the Italian army, Peruggia moved back to France and married, fathering a girl before he died at age 44.

Vincenzo Peruggia (1909)Via Wikipedia. — Vincenzo Peruggia (1909)
Via Wikipedia.

The Aftermath

It’s hard for some people to believe that the Mona Lisa was only stolen by one person. Books have been written about a group of thieves, with Peruggia being the only one caught. There is no evidence of anyone helping Peruggia and he never claimed anyone was with him, through numerous interviews with the police.

In 1932, Karl Decker, a writer for the Saturday Evening Post, claimed that he met a man named Marqués Eduardo de Valfierno (the “Marquis of the Vale of Hell”) in 1914 in Morocco. de Valfierno was a glamorous con-man who claimed that he orchestrated the theft of the Mona Lisa in order to create six forged versions. His plan was to sell each forgery to a millionaire. de Valfierno hired Peruggia to steal the original painting. Peruggia ended up keeping the original painting and tried to sell it out of greed. It’s to be noted that not one of the purported six forgeries has ever turned up and Marqués Eduardo de Valfierno has never existed. This seems to be a wondrous made-up story in order to sell copies of a magazine.

The heist of the Mona Lisa made her a star of international proportions. Over eight million tourists pass by her frame every year. Her popularity created an easy icon for the masses, for easy consumerism and for satire.