Newspapers in 1911 were filled with stories of a mysterious American art collector who was behind the theft of the Mona Lisa. Americans were easy suspects because at the time many had become rich enough to begin gobbling up European art. The articles said that the American "was a close student of the 'Mona Lisa' and talked a great deal about it" although there was nothing to connect him with the actual disappearance. His name wasn't mentioned and it was said that he was a resident of a western city in the US, casting immediate suspicion on H.E. Huntington and William Randolph Hearst.
The American most often named in connection with the Mona Lisa theft was financier J.P. Morgan (below) who was repeatedly dogged by these rumors even after his death in Rome in 1913.
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