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犯罪與劫案
1911年8月21日 · 巴黎盧浮宮
藝術品盜竊狀態: 已偵破
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圖片: Unknown author · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
2 yearsthe painting remained missing
In 1911 the Mona Lisa was an admired masterpiece but not yet the most famous painting in the world. The Louvre had few guards and the paintings hung on simple hooks. Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian workman, had worked in the museum on the glass cases protecting the most important works and therefore knew the rooms, the routine and the way the panel was fixed.
On Monday 21 August 1911, when the museum was closed, Peruggia lifted the panel off the wall in the Salon Carré. In a stairwell he removed the frame and glass and then carried the painting out of the building under his work smock. The empty space was only noticed the next day, when a painter who wanted to copy the work asked about it; at first it was assumed to be with the photographer.
The Louvre closed for a week and the borders were watched. The police questioned the staff, including Peruggia, but let him go. The poet Guillaume Apollinaire was held for several days and Pablo Picasso was questioned; neither turned out to have anything to do with it. For more than two years the painting lay in a trunk in Peruggia's room in Paris.
In December 1913 Peruggia offered the work to an art dealer in Florence, who called in the director of the Uffizi; he was arrested. He said he had wanted to return the painting to Italy and received a short prison sentence. After a tour of Italian museums the Mona Lisa returned to the Louvre in January 1914. The worldwide press coverage is what made the painting truly famous.