Unbeknownst to police, however, the Mona Lisa was still in France. Vincenzo Peruggia, the man who stole the Mona Lisa. Many began to believe that Da Vinci’s 400-year-old masterpiece was lost for good. Alleged sightings filtered in from such far off locales as Brazil, Russia and Japan, but more than two years eventually passed without a break in the case. Morgan had commissioned the heist to bolster his private art collection still others believed the Germans had masterminded it to disgrace the French. The New York Times wrote that “a great number of citizens have turned amateur Sherlock Holmeses, and continue to advance most extraordinary theories.” Some argued that American banking magnate J.P. While the authorities questioned Apollinaire and Picasso in connection with the Mona Lisa’s disappearance, the two future art legends were later cleared due to lack of evidence.Īs days turned into months, speculation on the Mona Lisa’s whereabouts ran rampant. During his interrogation, he implicated his close friend Pablo Picasso, a 29-year-old Spanish artist who had purchased the statuettes and used them as models in his paintings. Apollinaire was arrested in September 1911 after police linked him to the earlier theft of two ancient statuettes, which had been lifted from the Louvre by his secretary. One high-profile suspect was Guillaume Apollinaire, an avant-garde poet who had once called for the Louvre to be burned down. When the Louvre finally reopened a week later, thousands of people came to gawk at the empty wall where the painting had once hung.ĭespite the media circus, the police investigation turned up few promising leads. Cars, steamer passengers and pedestrians were searched at checkpoints, and police circulated “wanted posters” of the Mona Lisa’s enigmatic half-smile.

An army of detectives descended on the Louvre to dust for fingerprints and question witnesses. “What audacious criminal, what mystifier, what maniac collector, what insane lover, has committed this abduction?” wondered the Parisian magazine L’Illustration. News of the disappearance prompted a public outcry in France. “Thus far we haven’t a clue as to who might have committed this crime.” That same evening, a museum official announced the theft to the world. It was only then that the Mona Lisa’s glass frame was discovered in the service stairwell. When the guard couldn’t locate it, the museum called the police and began a frantic search.

Finally, at around noon on Tuesday, a visiting artist asked a security guard to track the painting down. The museum’s paintings were often removed from the walls for cleaning or photography, so passersby took little notice of the blank space where the portrait was usually located. DAGLI ORTI/Getty Images)įor more than a day, the Louvre’s staff had no clue that the Mona Lisa had been stolen. Magazine cover featuring a drawing dramatizing the theft of the Mona Lisa.

The mona lisa