1911 Mona Lisa theft (1911): The wrong modernists · 513

On 21 August 1911 the Mona Lisa left the Louvre. Vincenzo Peruggia was caught in Florence in December 1913; the portrait returned to Paris in January 1914 and became a global celebrity. On Monday 21 August 1911, Leonardo da Vinci's portrait known in French as La Joconde and in English as the Mona Lisa was taken from the Salon Carré of the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Staff noticed the empty wall on 22 August. The Paris police and the Louvre's own security became a European press story within a day. Guillaume Apollinaire was arrested and released; Pablo Picasso was questioned. Neither was the thief.

In November–December 1913 a man using the name Leonardo Vincenzo contacted Florentine dealer Alfredo Geri and Uffizi director Giovanni Poggi, offering the painting. Peruggia, a former Louvre glazier and handyman of Italian birth, was arrested in Florence. The portrait was authenticated, shown briefly in Italy and returned to the Louvre in January 1914. A Florence court convicted Peruggia; the sentence was short, and he cited a patriotic claim that the work should be in Italy.

The case is convicted and the object is back. What the theft changed was fame. A painting already respected by specialists became, after two years of 'WANTED' reproductions in newspapers, the most recognised portrait on earth. This page records the loss, the Florence recovery and the court. It does not reconstruct how a worker walked a panel out of a palace.