The Lost Mona Lisa
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The Lost Mona Lisa
In the late afternoon of Sunday, 20 August 1911, three men strolled into the Louvre museum in Paris. Disguising themselves as museum staff they hid until nightfall. Sixteen hours later the most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa, had vanished. The theft of the Mona Lisa was the greatest crime ever to hit the art world. France closed her borders, a massive man-hunt was launched, even Picasso was a suspect - but all to no avail, the Mona Lisa had gone...until two years later when a letter arrived in Florence signed 'Leonardo'; the painting was for sale. The Lost Mona Lisa uncovers the truth behind the 'crime of the century'. It is a story to rival the best detective fiction - a story of audacious thieves, art forgers, shadowy conmen, millionaire collectors, a global manhunt, and the most beautiful and enigmatic woman in the world, Mona Lisa Gioconda.
Vanished Smile
On August 21, 1911, the unfathomable happened–Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa vanished from the Louvre. More than twenty-four hours passed before museum officials realized she was gone. The prime suspects were as shocking as the crime: Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, young provocateurs of a new art. As French detectives using the latest methods of criminology, including fingerprinting, tried to trace the thieves, a burgeoning international media hyped news of the heist. No story captured the imagination of the world quite like this one. Thousands flocked to the Louvre to see the empty space where the painting had hung. They mourned as if Mona Lisa were a lost loved one, left flowers and notes, and set new attendance records. For more than two years, Mona Lisa’s absence haunted the art world, provoking the question: Was she lost forever? A century later, questions still linger. Part love story, part mystery, Vanished Smile reopens the case of the most audacious and perplexing art theft ever committed. R. A. Scotti’s riveting, ingeniously realized account is itself a masterly portrait of a world in transition. Combining her skills as a historian and a novelist, Scotti turns the tantalizing clues into a story of the painting’s transformation into the most familiar and lasting icon of all time.
The Thefts of the Mona Lisa
Author: Noah Charney
language: en
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Release Date: 2024-02-06
"Historian Charney tracks the eventful life of the Mona Lisa in this rollicking account.... The result is both a thrilling tale of true crime and a rigorous work of art history." — Publishers Weekly, Starred Review From the artwork to its theft and role in popular culture, the critically-acclaimed book The Thefts of the Mona Lisa (Foreword Reviews, Publishers Weekly Starred Review, Shelf Awareness, Booklist, Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews) provides the complete story of this work of art, as written by a bestselling, Pulitzer finalist author. Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait, called the Mona Lisa, is without doubt the world’s most famous painting. It achieved its fame not only because it is a remarkable example of Renaissance portraiture, created by an acclaimed artistic and scientific genius, but because of its criminal history. The Mona Lisa (also called La Gioconda or La Joconde) was stolen on 21 August 1911 by an Italian, Vincenzo Peruggia. Peruggia was under the mistaken impression that the Mona Lisa had been stolen from Italy during the Napoleonic era, and he wished to take back for Italy one of his country’s greatest treasures. His successful theft of the painting from the Louvre, the farcical manhunt that followed, and Peruggia’s subsequent trial in Florence were highly publicized, sparking the attention of the international media, and catapulting an already admired painting into stratospheric heights of fame. This book reveals the art and criminal history of the Mona Lisa. Charney examines the criminal biography of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, with a focus on separating fact from fiction in the story of what is not only the most famous art heist in history, but which is the single most famous theft of all time. In the process he delves into Leonardo’s creation of the Mona Lisa, discusses why it is so famous, and investigates two other events in its history of theft and renown. First, it examines the so-called “affaire des statuettes,” in which Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire were arrested under suspicion of involvement in the theft of the Mona Lisa. Second, there has long been a question as to whether the Nazis stole the Mona Lisa during the Second World War—a question that this book seeks to resolve.