Who stole the Mona Lisa? How was the Mona Lisa stolen? Was Picasso a thief?

The painting that these three people removed, or rather stole, from the Louvre is a work that would become the most famous painting in the world in the following years if it was not already at that time, Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

These three people are Italian; two brothers, Vincenzo and Michele Lancelotti, and their leader, Vincenzo Peruggia. This last one had previously worked on minor repairs at the Louvre and even installed the protective metal frame and windows of the Mona Lisa. They entered the museum during the day and hid in large cabinets towards closing time. At night, they crept into the gallery where the Mona Lisa was exhibited, removed the wooden panel from where it was fixed to the wall with large dots and managed to escape through the side door of the museum by covering it with a cover.

Vincenzo Peruggia (8 October 1881 – 8 October 1925) was an Italian museum worker, artist and thief, most famous for stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum in Paris on 21 August 1911.

It is not until the next day that the Mona Lisa is discovered missing; The first person to notice that the painting is not where it should be is a painter who has set up his easel and has been painting the gallery for a few weeks; He asks the officials why the work he sees every day is not there. At first, the officers thought that the work was taken to the attic to be photographed, but since the light in the galleries was not sufficient, it is common for the paintings to be taken to the attic where there was better light. However, upon further investigation, it becomes clear that the Mona Lisa is not there and a scandal breaks out. The theft of the work made headlines in all the newspapers the next day. It is with this theft that the Mona Lisa became the most well-known work of art in the world.

(Mona Lisa, or with her real name Lisa del Giocondo, is the young wife of the rich Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo. The painting is a portrait commissioned by Francesco Da Vinci, one of the famous painters of the period, in memory of the birth of the couple's son Andrea. Da Vinci painted the painting in 1503. Even though he started in 1504, it would take more than ten years to complete the work, and when it was finished, the portrait would not be delivered to the Giocondo family.

Da Vinci, who continued his studies alternately between Florence, Milan, and Rome until 1516, went to France at the invitation of King François I after the death of his guardian Giuliano de Medici in 1516; As the chief painter, engineer, and architect of the palace, he settled in the mansion prepared for him near the Royal Palace in Amboise, southwest of Paris; It is thought that Mona Lisa was completed here. The work, which was sold to the King for 4 thousand écu, was exhibited first in Fontainebleau and then in the Palace of Versailles. The painting, which was moved to the Louvre Palace after the French Revolution, was moved to the Tuileries Palace, where Napoleon Bonaparte lived, during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, but later returned to the Louvre Palace.)

When it was determined that the painting was stolen, the Louvre Museum was closed to visitors for a week. The next week, crowds, including Franz Kafka, flock to the Louvre to see the empty wall where the Mona Lisa used to be, now a "mark of shame" for Parisians; So much so that Mona Lisa's wall is visited by more people than when the painting was hanging!

Vincenzo Peruggia, who hid the Mona Lisa in the bottom of a chest in the house where he was staying, intends to wait for things to calm down for a while and then dispose of the painting, but things do not go as he expected. The theft of the Mona Lisa, which until that day was not considered the most famous work even in the hall where it was exhibited, let alone in the Louvre, had repercussions all over the world. The New York Times published the news "60 detectives are looking for the stolen Mona Lisa, the French public is angry" along with the Mona Lisa painting. for example.

The press loved the news about the painting stolen from the Louvre, and months later, news about the Mona Lisa continued to appear. Some newspapers even offer a hefty reward to the person who finds the Mona Lisa. Rumors abound that the painting was stolen by Germans or ultra-rich American businessmen; Many people are sure that the German Kaizer Wilhelm II or the American ultra-rich businessman JP Morgan is behind this. The discovery of the Mona Lisa has now become a matter of national pride for the French.

[It may interest you that two of the other suspects in the case are Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire. Honore-Joseph Géry Pieret, who was Apollinaire's secretary a few years before the incident, stole small Iberian statues from the Louvre for his employer, and Apollinaire later sold two of them to his close friend Pablo Picasso. Although no official accusation has been made regarding the incident, it is known in Paris art circles that the stolen statues are Apollinaire and Picasso. Therefore, it is not surprising that these artists were among the first suspects of the police in the Mona Lisa case.

Aware of the situation, Apollinaire and Picasso leave the house at midnight to throw the stolen figurines they filled into a suitcase into the Seine River. Both of them are afraid, they wander around for a few hours with their suitcases in hand, with the suspicion of being followed, and then they give up and return; The next day, Apollinaire delivers the statuettes to the Louvre through a newspaper editor he knows. Apollinaire, who was subsequently questioned by the police and detained for a week, was brought to court together with Picasso. Picasso says in court that he has nothing to do with these statues, and even claims that he has never seen the person named Apollinaire before! Both are released.]

Vincenzo Peruggia waited patiently for more than two years, but photographs of the Mona Lisa were published by so many newspapers and so frequently that even anyone on the street would recognize it when they saw it; It is no longer possible for him to sell the painting quietly, especially in Paris; He also goes to Florence with the painting. After staying there for a while, he decides to try his luck and goes to Mario Fratelli, the owner of one of the famous art galleries in the city, and tells him that he has the Mona Lisa. Fratelli calls Giovanni Poggi, the director of the Uffizi Gallery, and asks him to check the authenticity of the work. Yes, the picture is original; They send Vincenzo Peruggia home, saying they will give him a large reward. While Peruggia was excitedly waiting for his reward, an hour later he found the police at his door and was arrested.

When Vincenzo Peruggia is brought before the judge, he claims that he stole the Mona Lisa, which was stolen by Napoleon, in order to bring it back to Italy, to its true homeland. However, in the letters he wrote to his family over the past two years, he repeatedly wrote that his luck had changed and that he would soon become very rich. But his story is convincing to the court, and Peruggia instantly becomes a national hero for the Italian people.

Mona Lisa was exhibited in the Uffizi Gallery for two weeks with intense visitor interest and then returned to the Louvre. Peruggia also received only a one-year prison sentence and was released after 7 months without completing that.

Regardless of all these events, Mona Lisa is of course an innovative and very important work. For example, unlike period portraits, it is an innovation that the model is depicted at ¾ length rather than her full length. The -partial- bird's eye view that extends behind the model was not a very common background for that period.

Mona Lisa does not have the ostentatious clothes and ostentatious jewelry seen in the noble and rich portraits of that period; Instead, we have an elegant, simple woman. The eyes looking at the viewer were a feature not often seen in female portraits at that time. The smile, the meaning of which has been debated for a long time - and has not been understood - is the most striking aspect of the picture.

[Perhaps Lisa del Giocondo just did not like posing, or she was bored and put a forced smile on her lips at the insistence of the painter, we do not know.]

The portrait, which also displays Da Vinci's deep knowledge of human anatomy, is a perfect example of sfumato, the technique of making light-dark transitions using tones and thus blurring the outlines of objects, and is proof of Da Vinci's mastery. But still, considering the great masters of the period such as Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and Botticelli, it is difficult to consider Da Vinci the most prominent artist of the Renaissance. However, when the artist's manuscripts and other works, which emerged long after his death, revealed that he was not only a great artist but also an architect, designer, engineer, and anatomist far beyond his time, Da Vinci soon overshadowed the others and became the "genius of the Renaissance period". 

In the meantime, heated debates about Mona Lisa's true identity and the meaning of her mysterious smile helped this portrait become the most well-known work of art. Although we know from the writings of Giorgio Vasari, who lived between 1511 and 1574 and is considered the founder of art history, that the Mona Lisa is Lisa del Giocondo, but the claims and debates that that portrait has been lost and that the Mona Lisa is another portrait continue even today.

The Mona Lisa has been exhibited in the Louvre Museum since 1797. 80% of people visiting the museum say they came to see it, the interest is so intense that last year, museum officials had to limit the number of people visiting the Mona Lisa to 30 thousand per day and the time groups could spend in front of the painting to 30 seconds.