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Quick answers
When was the Mona Lisa stolen?
On 21 August 1911, from the Salon Carré of the Louvre in Paris. The empty wall was noticed on 22 August. The painting was missing for twenty-eight months.
Who took it?
Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian-born former Louvre glazier and handyman. He was arrested in Florence in December 1913 after offering the panel through dealer Alfredo Geri. A Florence court convicted him.
When did the painting return?
It was authenticated in Florence in December 1913, shown briefly in Italy and returned to the Louvre in January 1914. It has remained in the French national collection since, now in the Salle des États.
Were Picasso and Apollinaire involved?
No. Apollinaire was arrested because of an earlier, separate Louvre theft of small Iberian sculptures by an acquaintance. Picasso was questioned. Both were cleared of the Mona Lisa. The episode is a documented false lead.
Why did Peruggia say he took it?
He offered a patriotic story: that the work belonged in Italy. Leonardo had brought the portrait to France himself, and it had long been in the French royal collection. The court treated a motive speech as a motive speech, not as title to the panel.
Did the theft make the Mona Lisa famous?
It made the face universally famous. Specialists already ranked the portrait high. Two years of newspaper reproductions and a triumphant 1914 return created the modern pilgrimage picture.
The story is a single missing panel, a two-year press panic and a Florence arrest.
The public ending is a conviction and a return, not an empty frame.
Beats
- An empty wall in the Salon Carré
On 21 August 1911 the Mona Lisa left its place in the Louvre. Staff saw the gap on the 22nd. Paris police and European papers opened a missing-masterpiece file.
- The wrong modernists
Apollinaire's arrest and Picasso's questioning in September 1911 showed how a famous loss drags in famous names. Both were cleared.
- Twenty-eight months of reproductions
Newspapers printed the face as a wanted image. The painting's mass celebrity dates to this interval as much as to any earlier essay.
- Florence, winter 1913
Peruggia offered the panel through Alfredo Geri. Giovanni Poggi of the Uffizi examined it. Arrest and authentication followed in December.
- Home in January 1914
After Italian viewings the portrait returned to the Louvre. A Florence court convicted Peruggia on a short sentence. The case closed; the fame did not.
The 1911 theft is a convicted, recovered art crime whose real yield was a global icon.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.