The Patriot Who Stole the Most Famous Painting in the World

In the recent reports of the Louvre break-in, many accounts mentioned the Louvre’s heretofore most famous heist. In 1911, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, now one of the Louvre’s most prized possessions, was stolen. In an earlier post, I wrote about several aspects of this famous robbery: the Mona Lisa’s history, France’s burgeoning art trafficking industry at the time, the discovery of the missing masterpiece, and how Pablo Picasso became implicated in the crime. Today’s post tells the complete story of the thief, Vincenzo Peruggia, and the investigation that failed to track him down.

The Failure of Fledging Forensics

The Louvre was actually closed on the day that the Mona Lisa went missing. The Parisian painter Louis Béroud, commissioned by the Louvre to produce paintings of daily life within the museum, was the first to notice its absence. Authorities soon located the painting’s wood frame and protective glass in a narrow stairwell leading from the gallery where the painting had hung. This discovery confirmed the worst: that the painting had been stolen. Only a thief would take time to ditch these bulky items as he fled the scene.

Utilizing the latest forensic techniques, investigators were able to lift a single thumbprint off the glass. They hoped that the print, from the left hand of the likely perpetrator, would prove invaluable. Fingerprinting was a relatively new forensic tool, and French police had recently added thumbprints to their criminal records. At the time, such records also recorded a number of useless anthropometric measurements developed by the world’s first forensic scientist, Alphonse Bertillon.

In the 1880s, Bertillon created a system for identifying criminals by their physical traits, including head length, head breadth, the length of the middle finger, and the length of the left foot. In total, he identified 11 different characteristics that when combined, he theorized, would be unique for every individual. In 1894, he somewhat reluctantly added the thumbprint to the list, which eventually proved to be the only measurement police could rely on.

At the time of Mona Lisa’s disappearance, police departments customarily recorded the thumbprint from a criminal’s right hand, ignoring prints for the other nine digits. So, despite the care taken in retrieving a potentially damning piece of evidence from Mona Lisa’s glazing, the left thumbprint led nowhere.

The Skyrocketing Fame of a Missing Mona Lisa

Top-ranking administrators at the Louvre had long viewed the theft of a renowned masterpiece as highly implausible. Who would steal one of the most famous paintings in the world? They would never be able to unload it without getting caught. Everyone now wondered how a thief had managed to walk off with a tableau that had been safely housed in the Louvre since 1804? Painted on inflexible wood, not canvas, the smiling portrait was not something you could simply furl up the sleeve of your manteau.

While the Mona Lisa, known as La Joconde in France, had long been considered a prominent masterpiece of Italian Renaissance art, the average person had never heard of or seen a reproduction of the painting. Suddenly, da Vinci’s missing chef-d’œuvre was front-page news in papers across the globe. Practically overnight, tens of millions of previously uninterested people now knew that a clever thief had made off with da Vinci’s masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, painted near the turn of the 16th century, stolen from the most famous museum in the world, and having a value in the ballpark of five million dollars.

After several days of closure, when the Louvre reopened, a parade of inquiring minds, many of whom had never visited a museum, lined up to gain a glimpse of four iron nails, still affixed to the wall where they’d supported La Joconde. It’s said the writer Franz Kafka came all the way from Prague to experience the Mona Lisa’s presence in absentia. With thousands of new visitors flooding its galleries, the Louvre’s security concerns were now greater than ever.

Hiding Right Under our Nez

Louis Lepine, Chief of Police of Paris, and head of investigation, now placed 50 plainclothesmen amidst the crowd. This represented a colossal boost to the museum’s 12 guardians—many of whom were aging veterans—charged with protecting the Louvre’s invaluable treasures.

Lepine had already mobilized a special task force of 60 detectives to interview all of the museum’s employees. However, they found no new information that might help solve the crime. In the weeks, days, and hours leading up to the theft, no one recalled seeing anything unusual. The police’s growing frustration was matched by the Louvre’s increasing embarrassment. How had the thief managed to enter the museum so easily and walk away with a celebrated work, leaving barely a trace behind him?

France’s borders were closed, and all train stations and shipping ports were placed under tight surveillance. It was imperative that the coveted masterpiece not leave the country. And indeed, for the next two years, it remained in Paris, hidden beneath a bed in a small one-room apartment—formerly a servant’s quarter under the sloped rooftop of one of Paris’s fashionable apartment buildings.

An Overlooked Employee of the Louvre

As they say, hindsight is 20/20, but in the case of the stolen Mona Lisa, it seems the police, flooded with an overabundance of leads to track, failed to scrutinize the most likely suspects: Louvre employees. In December 1913, long after the investigation had stalled, the painting resurfaced in Florence! Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian glazier who had worked for the Louvre, had finally pulled the Mona Lisa out from under his bed and attempted to return it to Italy.

Peruggia should have been a prime suspect. He had a criminal record and was known to the police. His job at the Louvre had been to refit many of the paintings with protective glass. Thus, extracting a tableau from its encasement posed little problem for him, as did identifying an exit where his movements would go undetected.

In fairness to the French police, it should be noted that they did suspect the crime had been conducted, or at least aided, by a museum employee. They questioned and fingerprinted (getting a left thumbprint) 257 people known to have worked at the Louvre in various capacities. Each time they issued a summons to Peruggia, however, he failed to appear. When questioned about his repeated absences, he somehow managed to convince the authorities that there were valid reasons behind his delinquency, and the matter was dropped.

In one account, an Inspector Brunet went to Peruggia’s apartment but didn’t take the time to thoroughly search it. In another account, the painting curator at the Louvre, Paul Leprieur, took matters into his own hands and went to Peruggia’s apartment to question him. He wouldn’t have had the authority to search the place, and his scanning of the surroundings provided no hint that the painting was safely stowed in a false-bottom trunk beneath Peruggia’s bed.

Out of the Frying Pan…

Obviously, Peruggia was feeling some heat. He wisely chose to lie low, remain in Paris, and defend his innocence only when necessary. The perilous strategy worked. By 1913, however, he was understandably antsy. He wrote to his parents in Italy telling them he was on the cusp of earning a fortune that would secure the family’s future. He also began contacting antiquities collectors. One such dealer, Alfredo Geri, had issued a call for artwork to be presented at an upcoming exhibition in Italy.

In his letter to Geri, Peruggia admitted to being the author of the crime of the century. It was he who possessed the Mona Lisa, and he wanted to restore it to its rightful homeland, Italy. Peruggia mistakenly believed that Napoleon had stolen the Mona Lisa during one of his Italian campaigns. It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption. Napoleon did indeed pilfer many of Italy’s masterpieces. Some of them have been returned; others remain in France, such as Les Noces de Cana by Paolo Veronese. However, in this case, Leonardo da Vinci willingly delivered La Joconde into the hands of François I, making France its rightful owner.

If Geri displayed the painting at his exhibition, Peruggia argued, they would both be serving the interests of Italy. Peruggia saw himself as an Italian patriot seeking to restore a casualty of France’s humiliating and wrongful pillaging. He admitted to Geri that he and the Mona Lisa were still in Paris, but if Geri were interested, he would bring the stolen treasure to Geri’s door. He signed the letter, Leonardo P.

Peruggia’s contempt for France was likely exacerbated by the prevailing French attitude of Italian inferiority. Italian tradesmen, like Peruggia, were sought after for their refined skills and craftsmanship. Yet, they faced the same racist barriers that seem to eternally plague immigrants. They were underpaid, mocked, and given access to inferior housing, tools, and working conditions.

Into the Fire

Geri had every reason to doubt Peruggia’s claims. Art counterfeiting was a bustling trade, and the savvy dealer probably suspected that dozens of fake Mona Lisas were already in circulation. Nevertheless, he wrote back to Peruggia, telling him that if he wanted to negotiate a sale, he would need to bring the painting to Florence. The two continued to exchange messages as Peruggia made his way south. Yet the date of his arrival remained unclear. When Geri suddenly received a telegram, stating that the art thief was in town, he was surprised. Later that day, a man who Geri would later describe as simply dressed entered his office, claiming to be the mysterious Leonardo P.

Peruggia revealed that La Joconde was nearby, safely installed in his hotel room, and invited Geri to come see it. Geri immediately contacted the director of the Uffizi Galleries, explaining the situation and requesting his expertise in verifying the painting’s authenticity. The three men soon converged in Peruggia’s shabby hotel room, where Peruggia opened a homemade trunk. The upper portion of the trunk contained a mishmash of Peruggia’s belongings: tools, plaster mix, clothing, even a mandolin. Below lay the unharmed Mona Lisa, lovingly enveloped in red velour.

Peruggia again invoked his Italian patriotism, explaining that he simply wanted to return the masterpiece to its rightful owners. Of course, he’d need to be compensated for his heroic efforts. A sum of 500,000 francs would do. The director seemed enthusiastic and told Peruggia that he intended to proceed with an acquisition but he would need to borrow the painting for further authentication and building a case for government purchase. Perhaps Peruggia was so relieved by this reception that he let down his guard. In any case, he allowed Geri and the director to part with his booty and once they were gone, he was summarily arrested.

Peruggia’s Transformation from Thief to Hero

While Peruggia was placed in prison, word of his patriotic intentions got out. Soon he was receiving fan mail, including hundreds of marriage proposals from Italian women. Many of his devotees were poor Italians who had emigrated to France and took pleasure in this internationally-followed comeuppance. However, the Italian government immediately announced that they would be returning the masterwork, but not before parading it before the Italian public.

Hence the Mona Lisa went on tour, first in Florence, then in Rome, and finally in a first class train car that was overwhelmed by spectators at every village it visited. The French too came out in droves as the train traveled northward. All seemed overjoyed by the painting’s retrieval, all except the police. Learning that the entire caper had been conducted by an under-resourced loner, a former Louvre employee, who hid his loot in a Parisian flat for more than two years, just steps away from the Louvre, must have been a bitter pill to swallow.

As for Peruggia, he didn’t stay in prison for long. His trial was held in June of 1914 and he was found guilty of aggravated theft and sentenced to one year and fifteen days. Upon appeal, however, the sentence was reduced to time served and Peruggia was set free in July. His time in the spotlight was fleeting. Perhaps his most bruising punishment was having to return to France to find work. He settled in a suburb of Paris where he took on odd jobs as a painter and decorator using his birth name Pietro Peruggia. He died of a heart attack in October 1925, at the age of 44, possibly as a result of lead poisoning.

Le Dernier Mot

The Mona Lisa has led a relatively peaceful life ever since, although vandals have occasionally tried to harm her. 1956 seems to have been a particularly rough year with two separate incidents. One woman threw acid at the painting while it was on display at a museum in southern France. And an impulsive young man, apparently lacking in judgement, pelted it with a rock he happened to find in his pocket. The damage is faint but still noticeable. The addition of bulletproof glass repelled a subsequent attack with spray paint in 1974 as well a teacup hurled by a Russian visitor in 2009. She was understandably upset after not being granted French citizenship.