511 and Counting

I was poised to start putting together ACT II of the film but that required me to have an accurate timeline of what happened: who knew what when, where Vincenzo Peruggia was and what he doing during the 2 1/2 years he had the painting.

Easy enough. I have plenty of research and sources. Plus I already had a timeline started . But it was hundreds of pages and was becoming unwieldy so I decided to start breaking it down to the old reliable 3x5 cards. Those would be simple to shuffle through and pin up on our big board.

I just finished. So far there are 511 cards and I haven't been through all my source material. I figure that number to at least double - maybe triple.

Here's an example. It's CARD #359. It's what the concierge of his building in Paris said about him:

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1913 – 1:00 am – PARIS

Mme Duc, the concierge:

I never quite believed he could have stolen the painting from the Louvre, at least that he conceived the project and executed it on his own. They say he did the job for someone else. That would not surprise me at all.

I'll be posting more.

Sacre Blew

I spent the day translating French from 100-year old newspaper stories about the theft.  Do I know French? Only enough to say Je voudrais une crepe au jambon - which means I would like a crepe with ham.

What I did was to type the story out into google translate. It more or less works - 0r enough for me to get the sense of what it is I'm reading about. I was looking mostly for any tidbit on Peruggia's work history. I'm trying to figure out exactly when he came to Paris.  I know it was in 1902.  He came back again in 1905. And then again in 1908 and stayed.  He says he came in 1900 and stayed to 1904 -- so that screws everything up. I'm tired and my butt hurts. It's Friday night.  I need to go do something else for a while.

Portraits of Celestina

This is a short clip of some un-Photoshopped photos of Celestina from 40-days-old up through her marriage to Amletto in her 20s.

Many of these will be used in the film.

Music is by the courtesy of composer/performer Tim Farrell

www.timfarrellmusic.com

http://www.myspace.com/timfarrell

MORE INFO ABOUT THE POSTCARD

Here’s what our Senior Researcher Eileen White says about it:

There she is with Mino da Fiesole’s portrait of Dietisalvi Neroni to her left, and at the right Desiderio da Settignano’s portrait of a young woman.(now called St. Constance) displaying the portrait of la Gioconda with more or less contemporary Florentines (both busts made about a generation earlier than the painting) is actually the most congenial arrangement the Louvre ever came up with.

 I asked Eileen when she thought the postcard was from.  Here’s her response.

The Louvre acquired the Neroni bust from the heirs of the collector Gustave Dreyfus sometime between 1914 and 1919. but the Louvre was shut down during WW I and didn’t reopen until 1919 I think. So this specific arrangement would be 1919-20 at earliest and definitely by early 1930s, since a description of it appears then  

JUST GOT THIS

Just won a postcard on delcampe.com. It shows the Mona Lisa in the Grande Gallery of the Louvre sometime after its return from being stolen. See how they stepped up security by using a rope and stanchions? Pretty high tech.

A LOST LEONARDO FOUND?

Leonardo da Vinci painted only a handful of works. They're making a case that a painting thought to be from the 1800s is one of his.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/Technology/leonardo-da-vinci-painting-found/story?id=8822326

A BLOGGER FOUND US

I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I came across this blog about the theft of ML and it mentioned us and our doc.  Very well written and highly informative.  Well worth a look.

http://artoftheprank.com/2009/08/28/literateye-28-the-mona-lisa-theft-mystery-was-there-a-mastermind/