The Missing Mona Lisa Caper

On January 27, 2024 around 10 AM local time, two female protesters wearing T-shirts that read “food counterattack” threw pumpkin soup at the Mona Lisa. However, the work was behind protective glass and was not damaged.

The women then stood in front of the 16th Century painting by Leonardo da Vinci saying: “What is more important? Art or the right to healthy and sustainable food?

“Your agricultural system is sick. Our farmers are dying at work,” they add. Museum security are then seen putting black screens in front of them before the room is evacuated.

A group called Riposte Alimentaire (Food Counterattack) claimed responsibility for the stunt.

In a statement posted to X, formerly Twitter, the current model for food “stigmatizes the most precarious and does not respect our fundamental right to food”.

Rachida Dati, France’s Minister for Culture, said “no cause” could justify the Mona Lisa being targeted. “Like our heritage the painting belongs to future generations,” she said on X. Paris, France has seen protests by farmers throughout the month calling for an end to rising fuel costs and for regulations to be simplified culminating on January 26, 2024 by blocking key roads in and out of Paris.

The Mona Lisa has been behind safety glass since the early 1950s, when it was damaged by a visitor who poured acid on it. In 2019, the museum said it had installed a more transparent form of bulletproof glass to protect it. In 2022, an activist threw cake at the painting, urging people to “think of the Earth”.

But did you know that over a century ago, someone succeeded in stealing the Mona Lisa???

The Mona Lisa is a 16th Century painting by Leonardo da Vinci is one of the world’s most famous artworks, and is held at the Louvre in central Paris.

Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as “the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, and the most parodied work of art in the world”. The painting’s novel qualities include the subject’s enigmatic expression, monumentality of the composition, the subtle modelling of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism.

On Monday, August 21, 1911, a day when the museum was closed, the Mona Lisa simply … vanished!!!

It’s easy to assume that the case was big because the Mona Lisa was the world’s most famous painting, however it wasn’t back then. Still, the police got to work, the museum was shut down for a week and the theft was the first major property crime that received international media coverage.

The first ingredient in its amplified fame was the slew of coverage during the time the Mona Lisa was missing. Prior to the theft, many people would never have seen it but it soon became a popular icon. There were assorted newsreels, chocolate boxes, postcards and billboards about the theft. Her iconic fame was suddenly transformed into the celebrity of film stars and singers.

Famously, crowds flocked to the Louvre just to see the empty space where the painting had hung. Before, the Louvre had many notable works including the Venus de Milo, Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People and Gericault’s The Raft of the Medusa. After, the Mona Lisa built up a unique kind of fame.

The Mona Lisa theft became an affair of state and aroused great passions in France. But once the French newspapers had described the circumstances of the theft, they had nothing more to say about it. Instead they made up stories, trying to say that Leonardo had fallen in love with La Joconde and other bits of similar falsehoods.

The police unsuccessfully followed many trails. The poet Guillaume Apollinaire was jailed for a week and Pablo Picasso was suspected. Both were innocent. The thief’s apparently spectacular act had in fact not required any grand or daring plan.

The museum had dubious security and few guards. In fact, remedial work on the poor security had given one particular employee his inspiration.

Vincenzo Peruggia was not the kind of criminal mastermind that makes up the majority of art thieves in Hollywood films. He was not a genius cat burglar. The Italian immigrant worker had been at the Louvre since 1910 and had installed the glass-door that was protecting the masterpiece. He had the white outfit Louvre workers wore and knew how the painting was fixed to its frame.

These things all fell into place so Vincenzo saw a window of opportunity. He was not a master criminal nor an art connoisseur … it did not take huge planning, there was no huge difficulty, he was very lucky. He chose the Mona Lisa partly because she was so small, just 53cm x 77cm. Peruggia had first thought about stealing a painting by Mantegna, another Italian painter, but he chose the Mona Lisa because someone told him it was the Louvre’s most spectacular painting.

Peruggia managed to walk into the Louvre and walk out with the Leonardo painting after minimal preparation. Keeping the Mona Lisa hidden in his small apartment in Paris, he seemed to be ordinary man overwhelmed by his act. But his theft created a sensation.

The Mona Lisa was eventually recovered on December 10, 1913. Peruggia was caught after handing the painting to Alfredo Geri, an antique dealer in Florence, Italy.

After his arrest, Peruggia tried to claim patriotic motivation, saying he thought the painting had been stolen from Italy by Napoleon and that his mission was to return it to its source. He was mistaken. The painting had been bought fairly by Francis I in the 16th Century. As an Italian immigrant, Peruggia also argued that he had been subject to racism from French colleagues. But he had made a list of American art collectors, rather suggesting that he was thinking of selling it.

There is another hypothesis that is much more fanciful, that was published in a now defunct French newspaper in 1915 entitled “Peruggia’s confession” … it was said Peruggia might have been manipulated by a German man into stealing the painting.

The robbery of the Mona Lisa also contributed in creating a misconception about art theft that still prevails today. People are so used with the romanticized version of what art theft is that they tend not to notice how serious it is. They still think of it as funny and light despite the fact that it is much darker and sinister. People come from all over the world to see the Mona Lisa but this small and intimate portrait requires calm and some time to be appreciated. This is why few of them really “see” this painting. The Mona Lisa has become one of the wonders of the world. But the idea has replaced its beauty. People are responding to the myth. And the myth was created in part by the theft.

Although a myth came out of it, public opinion rapidly moved on after the thief was caught. People looked at Peruggia as a loveable quirky guy who fell in love with a work of art and did not damage it.

Peruggia got off lightly … one year and 15 days in jail, later reduced to seven months and nine days. Why?

Because of The Great War, later renamed World War I, took over the headlines and Peruggia was forgotten about.

Today such a theft in the Louvre could never happen despite the fact art thefts continue to happen, elsewhere.

Indeed, the Mona Lisa is a very realistic portrait. The subject’s softly sculptural face shows Leonardo’s skillful handling of sfumato, an artistic technique that uses subtle gradations of light and shadow to model form, and shows his understanding of the skull beneath the skin. However …

Being the highest known painting insurance valuation in history, an equivalent to $1.08 USD billion in 2026, isn’t too shabby either. However, because it is legally protected as French public property that cannot be sold, its true market value is considered priceless. If it ever went to an open auction, experts estimate it would between $5 billion and $10 billion USD.

Whoa!!! That would put a major dent in a government’s ballooning deficit!!!