1911 Mona Lisa theft (1913): Twenty-eight months of reproductions · 514

Line 514 of this record. ector Giovanni Poggi, offering the painting. Peruggia, a former Louvre glazier and handyman of Italian birth, crime whose cultural afterlife dwarfs its legal one: one man convicted, one painting returned, a global icon b back. What the theft changed was fame. A painting already respected by specialists became, after two years of In November–December 1913 a man using the name Leonardo Vincenzo contacted Florentine dealer Alfredo Geri and 1911 Mona Lisa theft stops where the public record stops. The year is 1913, the line is “Twenty-eight months of reproductions,” the figure is 21. A drama’s dialogue is not the file. Name Peruggia, Geri and Poggi first. The modernist cameos were cleared.

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.

A missing panel that made a celebrity The 1911 theft is the type case of an art crime whose cultural afterlife dwarfs its legal one: one man convicted, one painting returned, a global icon born in the empty space. The object is a poplar-panel portrait painted by Leonardo in the early sixteenth century, already in the French royal then national collection. In 1911 it was important; it was not yet a pilgrimage image. The empty wall, photographed and described in Le Petit Parisien and foreign wires, did more for its fame than any salon catalogue.

Say the name, the year, then the figure. For 1911 Mona Lisa theft, “Twenty-eight months of reproductions” is the name of 21.1913

Figures to keep

Year in the file: 1913
Figure that fixes it: 21
Case: 1911 Mona Lisa theft
Line that was public: Twenty-eight months of reproductions

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