Thursday, April 12, 2012

Famous Art Thefts: Mona Lisa


Vicenzo Peruggia, a former Louve employee actually walked out of the museum with the Mona Lisa under his clothes on August 21, 1911. 

How he removed the painting from its frame with no notice is beyond me. 

Officials questioned all sorts of people including Guillaume Apollinaire, a French poet who had at once time called for the Louvre to be “burnt down.”   He was arrested and then had the audacity to implicate his friend Pablo Picasso…….yes, that one.

Picasso was questioned but allowed to go.

Peruggia was fingered for the crime when he contacted a prominent art dealer in Florence in December, 1913 claiming he had a famous painting for sale. 

He had stolen the Mona Lisa because he wanted the painting returned to Itay – its rightful place in his opinion.

Once retrieved from Peruggia, the painting went on a whirlwind tour of Italy before being returned to the Louvre. 

Many of Peruggia’s Italian countrymen hailed him as a hero.   Back in France he was sentenced to a jail term of six months.

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