Mona Lisa is stolen from the Louvre on August 22, 1911 right under everybody’s noses. Very early in the morning, painter Louis Béroud heads to the Louvre Salon Carré with engraver Frédéric Laguillermie. Both artists – regulars – plan to sketch, as usual, a painting displayed within the museum.
They choose to head to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. But once they arrive where the Italian lady is usually displayed, both friends face the facts: Mona Lisa has gone! Warned, the questioned watchmen first guess the painting has been moved by curators and is in the Braun & Cie. photographic reproduction studio within the very Louvre. But the painting is nowhere to be seen.
The Sûreté Parisienne makes it to the Louvre in the early afternoon. About 60 investigators – ruled by chief of police Octave Hamard – investigate this incredible event. Fingerprints from 257 employees of the museum are collected to be compared with the ones found by the criminologist and father of the first police laboratory for criminal identification, Alphonse Bertillon, on the frame and the glass of the painting, found in the small staircase leading to the Cour Visconti. But to no avail.
While the investigation remains at a standstill, the public opinion gets ahead of itself, incriminating in turns the bad managing of the Louvre, the watchmen’s carelessness, the public power’s apathy. The Louvre director, Théophile Homolle, is forced to step down while the examining magistrate in charge of the case, Joseph-Marie Drioux, is mad at everyone so much that he suspects and sends Guillaume Apollinaire to the Prison de la Santé from September 7 to 11.
As a matter of fact, the poet has been already blamed for stealing three Phoenician figurines from the Louvre in 1907 and 1911 by his private secretary and friend Géry Pieret, who then sold one of them to Apollinaire and two to Picasso. The latter later claimed he knew nothing about the fraudulent origin of the figurines that inspired him “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”. But he is suspected of being a partner in the stealing of Mona Lisa, before being cleared with Apollinaire.
For two years, the French and international press is fascinated by the police investigation and speculate about the reason of the stealing. The Société des Amis du Louvre proposes a reward of 25,000 francs to whoever will bring the masterpiece back. So does the L’Illustration magazine, offering the double of the reward, namely 50,000 francs to anyone bringing the famous painting back to the museum. Nothing happens; after 28 months of investigation, Mona Lisa has not returned.
And yet, since the police pulled out, Mona Lisa is in Paris, hidden in a flat set rue de l’Hôpital Saint-Louis, in the popular district of the 10th arrondissement.
On December 10, 1913, the thief reveals himself in Italy; he tries to sale the painting to a Florence antique dealer, Alfredo Geri, under the name of Leonardi, averaging 500,000 liras. Identifying the painting as the one looked for all over the world for the past 2 years, Geri and Giovanni Poggi – the director of the Uffizi Gallery – warned riflemen who arrest the bandit in his hotel in Florence.
The thief, Vincenzo Peruggia, is an Italian glazier worker employed at the Louvre. Perfectly knowing the place, on August 21, 1911, he waited for the museum to close to hide the masterpiece under his white overalls. Interrogated by the police the first days of the investigation, he imagined an alibi approved by the inspectors. As for the reason of his larceny, he confesses he stole Mona Lisa for patriotism, to give her back to Italy.
“When I was working at the Louvre, I often stopped by Da Vinci’s paintings, and I was humiliated to see her in foreign land. Stealing her has been very simple. I only had to choose the perfect timing. One morning, I met my fellow decorative colleagues at the Louvre, I chatted with them, then I entered in the lounge where the painting was hung. It was empty. The painting was smiling in front of me. And in no time at all, I unhang it. I put the frame in the stairs, and slipped the canvas under my overalls. It only took a few seconds. No one has seen me, nobody even suspected me”, he first stated.
A defense line he stands by all his trial long as it takes place in Italy, the accused having not been extradited. Supported by many Italians, and charmed by his patriotism, the trial condemns him only to a year and fifteen days of jail, a sentence shortened then to seven months. After a victorious tour in Italy, the Gioconda is returned on January 4, 1914 to the Louvre and has been exhibited since then under constant supervision.
If you feel like (re)discovering Mona Lisa’s mysterious smile, it stands in the Salle des Etats, on the first floor of the Aile Denon at the Louvre. This is also the occasion to discover the current exhibitions: Paris-Athènes, Me, Taharqa, Pharaoh of two lands, and En Scène!.
Location
Louvre Museum
musée du louvre
75001 Paris 1
Access
Metro Palais Royal - Musée du Louvre
