MONA LISA

Julie Kniveton Angela Llanas Libby Williams

MACMILLAN
 This is probably the most famous painting in the world.
lt is the Mona Lisa and it was painted by Leonardo da
Vinci. You can see copies of it in lots of art books and
encyclopedias, but if you want to see the real thing you
have to go to the Louvre Museum in Paris. People who
go there and see it are usually surprised by two things.
First, they are surprised because they feel the eyes of the
painting looking at them wherever they stand. This is
because da Vinci's model was looking straight at him
when he was painting her. Second, people are often
surprised by how small the beautiful painting is. lt is this
second fact which made this true story possible.
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1 n 191 O, the management of the Louvre Museum
decided that it was necessary to put glass security covers
over many of the museum's treasures to protect them
against vandals. Ateam of glaziers (people who work
with glass) was employed to do the job. One of the team
was an ltalian called Vicenzo Peruggia. One night when
Peruggia left work, a man who called himself "li Signore"
followed him. li Signore told Peruggia that he had a plan
to steal the Mona Lisa. He asked Peruggia to help him,
and told him that he would pay him a lot of money for
his part in the crime. Peruggia immediately agreed to
work for li Signore.

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)1 Signore told Peruggia to find out everything he could
about the security systems employed at the Louvre. He
had to find out which guards were on dut and when,
and how the doors were locked. Thi s was not difficult for
Peruggia because he was still worki ng at the museum. He
also discovered a small closet that was used by artists
and students to store paints and � when they went f

home at night. Without Peruggia's help, II Signore would

never have been able to get all the inside information he
needed about the Louvre Museum. Wi th the information
he received he was able to plan the theft. But that didn't
take place until nearly a year later!
Several months after Peruggia had finished working on
the glass security covers at the museum, li Signore told
him that he had found two other men to help him with
the theft of the Mona Lisa. They were ltalian brothers.
Their nomes were Vicenzo and Michele Lancelotti and
they lived in Paris. li Signore said that Monday was the
perfect day to steal the painting because the Louvre was
always closed on Mondays. He gave the three men white
overalls to wear. When they put them on they looked just
like the maintenance staff who worked at the museum
on Mondays. li Signore gave Peruggia a key. He said it
belonged to one of the service doors at the Louvre. They
could escape through that door.

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 8 Y now it was August 20th, 1911. lt was a Sunday and
nearly closing time at the Louvre Museum. Peruggia and
the Lancelotti brothers were there, trying to look just like
the tourists and art lovers visiting the museum that day.
But at closing time, while the other visitors were leaving
the museum, the three ltalians managed to hide in the
small storage closet Peruggia had found nearly a year
earlier. They closed the door behind them and made
themselves as comfortable as they could. Then they
waited. When the cleaning and maintenance staff arrived
at 6:30 the next morning, the three men left their hiding
place. They were wearing their white overalls, so nobody
noticed anything unusual.

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The three thieves were carrying brooms and they swept
the floors as they made their way towards the Salon
Carré, where the Mona Lisa was hanging. Peruggia told
the Lancelotti brothers to stand at the doar keeping a
look out for the museum guards. He walked in, reached
up and lifted the painting off the wall. lt's only 53
centimeters by 76 centimeters in size, so he could easily
hide it underneath his overalls. Peruggia joined the
Lancelotti brothers and the three men ran down the stairs
as fast as they could and made their way to the service
doar. On their way, Peruggia threw the picture frame
and the protective glass covering into a trash can. Now
the painting was even easier to hide.

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 The thieves got a terrible shock. Somebody had
changed the lock on the service doar. The key wouldn't
work! Fortunately, Peruggia had brought a screwdriver
with him in case anything went wrong. Keeping calm, he
removed the screws and took the doar knob off, but then
a member of the museum staff appeared. lt was a man
called Sauvet who worked as a plumber at the Louvre.
The three men had no time to hi de. Peruggia pushed the
screwdriver back into his pocket and called to Sauvet. He
said that they couldn't get out beca use someone had
taken off the doar knob. Suspecting nothing, the plumber
took out his own key and opened the doar. The three
thieves were out of the museum. They had successfully
stolen the Mona Lisa, the world's most famous painting!

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The three thieves jumped into a getaway car. The driver
took them to the room where Vicenzo Lancelotti lived. II
Signore was waiting for them there. Peruggia gave him
the painting and he carefully inspected it to make sure
that it really was the original. lt was. li Signore paid the
three thieves generously for their work. He told them he
had to leave Paris on a business trip. He said he would
pick up the painting when he returned.
The police began investigating the theft. AII the
glaziers who had worked on the security cover project,
including Peruggia, were suspects in the crime. The police
searched Peruggia's apartment. But they found nothing.
Well, of course they didn't - the painting wasn't there! So
Peruggia was no longer under suspicion. 9
 Now the plan moved into its final phase. Following li
Signore's instructions, three months later Peruggia
collected the Mona Lisa from Vincenzo Lancelotti's roam
and took it back to his own apartment. He hid the
painting in the false bottom of a specially made trunk. The
painting lay hidden there for more than two years. II
Signore never carne to collect it. ln fact Peruggia began to
think that he was never going to come at all! He thought
it would be a good idea to try and sell the painting
himself. That way he would get the evidence out of his
apartment, and make himself a lot more money as well.

//

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Peruggia decided it would be for too dangerous to sell
the Mona Lisa in France, so he went to ltaly to see an art
dealer i n Florence. Although the art dealer di dn't really
think that Peruggia could possibly have the real Leonardo
da Vinci masterpiece, he invited an expert from the Uffizi
Museum to go along with him to see the painting.
Fortunately for the world and unfortunately for Peruggia,
the expert quickly realized that they were looking at the
original painting. Both the art dealer and the expert from
the Uffizi Museum knew that the Mona Lisa had been
stolen from the Louvre some twenty-nine months earlier.
The two men quickly called the police and Peruggia was
arrested. The painting was returned to the Louvre.

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 Many people thought that Peruggia would be sent to
prison for a very long time for stealing such a valuable
work of art. Curiously, this did not happen! He had been
caught in ltaly and most ltalians thought he was a patriotic
hera. He had stolen a picture which had been painted by
one of their countrymen, and they didn't think it should be
in a museum in France. As the ltalians saw it, Peruggia had
been trying to bring the Mona Lisa back to its country of
origin. So the judge gave Peruggia a seven-month jail
sentence, which meant he was released immediately
because he had already been kept in jail for seven months
and nine days while waiting for his triai to begin.

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 But where was II Signore all this time? After ali, it was
not really Peruggia but II Signore who had masterminded
the whole crime. So where was he? Nobody knew! And
who was he? Nobody knew that ei ther! Not even
Peruggia knew who he was. He only knew him as II
Signore. He had never been told what his real nome was.
And why had II Signore never come back to collect his
stolen painting? Had there been an accident? Was II
Signore dead? Peruggia couldn't understand it at ali. And
indeed it was many, many years before anybody found
out the rest of the story.
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 What had really happened was that II Signore had
never intended to collect the Mona Lisa from Peruggia at
ali. AII he had wanted was for every newspaper in the
world to report that Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting
had been stolen. And that certainly happened. Everybody
in the whole world who was interested in art knew that
the Mona Lisa was missing. But why did that interest II
Signore so much? The truth is that it interested him
because he had six amazing forgeries (professionally
painted copies) of the famous painting at home. These
forgeries were so good that it would be very difficult even
for an expert to tell them from the original. The theft of
14 the Mona Lisa was just the beginning of II Signore's plan.
 Some time before the robbery at the Louvre, li Signore
had been on a trip to the United States. There he had
seen (individually, of course) six unscrupulous American
art dealers. He had asked them if they would be
interested in buying the Mona Lisa if he could get it for
them. They had ali said they would love to buy it from li
Signore if that became possible, and they wouldn't ask
any questions. Totally satisfied by the success of his plan
so for, II Signore had returned to Paris to ask Peruggia
and the Lancelotti brothers to help him. The six American
art dealers couldn't believe their luck when they heard
some months later that the Mona Lisa had been stolen.
Now ali they had to do was to wait for II Signore to
contact them again.

[
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 Atter the robbery II Signore went back to th e United
States taking the six forgeries with h im. One by one he
called the American art dealers, telling each one that he
now had the Mona Lisa in his possession. He showed
each of the art dealers a different forgery. None of them
realised that the painting was not the original. And of
course th ey ali knew that the Mona Lisa had been stolen,
so th ey weren't surprised it was for sole. Each one
thought he was the luckiest man in the world. Each one
paid li Signore $300,000 for his copy of the famous
painting. Everybody was h appy, especially II Signore, who
h ad made a fortune without even selling the original of
th e Mona Lisa.

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So what did II Signore do with all his money? He
changed his nome (which was really Eduardo de
Valfierno) and moved abroad. He bought a wonderful
house and lived in luxurious splendor for the rest of his
life. He never went back to Paris and so he never saw the
original Mona Lisa again. He never contacted Peruggia
or the Lancelotti brothers after the day of the robbery. He
died in 1931. Obviously, the American art dealers knew
they had been tricked the moment Peruggia was caught,
but they could never say any thing. They had tried to buy
a painting which they knew had been stolen, and that
was a crime. And th ey hadn't recognised that the
paintings were forgeries. That was very embarrassing for
professional art dealers.
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 How do we know what really happened ali those years
ago? Because De Valfierno didn't keep the story a
complete secret. He wanted people to know how dever
he was, so he told a friend of his, Karl Decker, who was
an Americon newspaper man. De Valfierno made him
promise never to tell anyone as long as he, de Valfierno,
was still alive. Karl Decker agreed to this, but when his
friend died in 1931 he told the story to the world. And at
last the police were able to understand what had
happened to the Mona Lisa twenty years earlier, and
why. The story caused a sensation and people all over the
world were amazed at how de Valfierno had been able to
trick the art world and not pay for his crime.

�1931

RlU L L lA N1 .
ll'I C ON S
a

A &

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Many people believe the robbery of the Mona Lisa was
the perfect crime. Fortunately, with modem methods of
protection and detection, it's unlikely that Leonardo da
Vinci's masterpiece will ever be stolen again. lf you ever
go to Paris, be sure to visit the Louvre Museum and see
its most famous painting. lt's still hanging there, but the
painting is now behind bulletproof glass and there's a
metal railing to stop people from getting too dose to it.
As you stand in front of it, admiring it, remember the
strange things that happened to that painting ali those
many years ago.
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