A 1911 MONA LISA THEFT CARTOON

This is a cartoon from the September 9, 1911 edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune.  Published several weeks after the theft, it shows a hypothetical scenario of the thief "Enjoying (his) Stolen Property."  But before he can do that, he must first block his door and cover his window.  He's so nervous that he's startled by a mouse (panel 6). Finally, we see him cowering by candlelight, half-looking at the Mona Lisa and half-listening for the knock of the law.

It asks the question: "The man who stole the 'Mona Lisa' - is he having a pleasant time?"

From what we can tell, Vincenzo Peruggia was not so paranoid.  He went about his daily life in a totally business-as-usual way.  He even went to work at his housepainting job after he stole the Mona Lisa and brought her to his room.  He also claimed to have shown the painting to his close friend Vincenzo Lancellotti.  Hardly as timid as a mouse.

PICASSO AND THE MONA LISA TOGETHER

I came across this photo of Picasso (center) taken by the photographer Vidal Ventosa in Barcelona in 1906.  The woman is Picasso's lover Fernande Olivier and the man is writer Ramon Reventós, but there's someone else famous in the photo.  Can you spot her?

Here's a closer look.

It's a postcard of the Mona Lisa.  This photo was taken 5 years before she was stolen from the Louvre by Vincenzo Peruggia, but Picasso would be ensnared in the investigation of the crime. For more about Picasso and his "involvement" in theft of the Mona Lisa, check out our previous blog posts.

http://www.monalisadocumentary.blogspot.com/2012/11/picasso-apollinaire-theft-of-mona-lisa.html

http://monalisadocumentary.blogspot.com/2010/09/why-was-pablo-picasso-questioned-in.html

PICASSO, APOLLINAIRE & THE THEFT OF THE MONA LISA

It's a well-known fact that Pablo Picasso was questioned after the theft of the Mona Lisa and his good friend, the poet Apollinaire, was held in jail for 8 days.  But what was the real story behind this event?  In our film, The Missing Piece, we talked to Picasso friend and biographer Pierre Daix  as well as to Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler, authors of The Crimes of Paris.  Here's a brief telling of has become known in Mona Lisa lore as L'Affaire des Statuettes.

MORE ABOUT PICASSO & APOLLINAIRE HERE:
http://monalisadocumentary.blogspot.com/2010/09/why-was-pablo-picasso-questioned-in.html

THIS IS HOW WE THINK VINCENZO PERUGGIA STOLE THE MONA LISA

In yesterday's blog (http://bit.ly/V4bm64), we showed how the French newspaper Excelsior thought Vincenzo Peruggia stole the Mona Lisa.

According to the research for our film The Missing Piece: The Truth About the Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa, some of these these depictions are not only incorrect but, frankly, ridiculous.  Let's go through them step by step.

STEP 1: Peruggia removes the Mona Lisa from the wall of the Salon Carré. TRUE OR FALSE?

From what we've learned, TRUE.  Peruggia entered the Louvre around 7:05 on the morning of Monday, August 21, 1911 dressed in a workman's smock.  On Mondays, the Louvre was closed for its weekly cleaning and maintenance.  Peruggia simply blended in with the other workers. It wasn't unusual for paintings to be removed and taken to the photographer's salon to be photographed for postcards and catalogs.


STEPS #2 & 3:  Removing the painting from the frame. TRUE OR FALSE?

Well, TRUE.  Peruggia did need to remove the painting from the frame to make it less cumbersome to carry.  But the idea that he did it in the Salon Carré where he could be seen by any passing guard or workman is just plain absurd. And that he left the painting in the Salon to go hide the frame is patently FALSE.

In his interrogation. Peruggia said that he removed the painting from the wall then took it -- frame and all.

But rather than leave the museum with it, he brought it  to a nearby service staircase.

It was here that he could take the time (most likely 5 minutes) to remove the Mona Lisa from its frame

STEP 4: Hiding the Frame




TRUE, once Peruggia removed the Mona Lisa from the the frame, he did leave that frame in the service staircase, but not in the open. He hid it behind some student copies that were stored on the staircase landing.
(SEE VIDEO RIGHT)



STEPS 5 thru 8: Leaving the museum with the painting under his smock. TRUE OR FALSE?

Well, Peruggia did leave the museum with the painting, but he did not leave by the small staircase for reasons we'll cover in another blog (it involved a locked door and a man who spotted Peruggia in the staircase).

And as far as putting the Mona Lisa under his smock.... FALSE. FALSE. FALSE.  In our film, we do a simple demonstration to show why it's physically impossible to put the Mona Lisa's 21x30-inch wooden panel under a workman's smock.

IS THIS HOW VINCENZO PERUGGIA STOLE THE MONA LISA?

When we interviewed the Celestina Peruggia, the daughter of the man who stole the Mona Lisa, we saw this copy of Excelsior, the French newspaper.  It was published on December 14, 1913 -- the day after Vincenzo Peruggia was arrested in Florence for stealing the Mona Lisa.

The drawings tell how Peruggia got the painting out of the museum -- or at least that's how they thought he escaped with it.

Let's look at their theory step-by-step.

STEP 1: Taking the painting off the wall.  Here Peruggia removes the Mona Lisa from her place in the Salon Carré.

STEP 2: Removing it from the frame.  He takes the time to remove the Mona Lisa panel while still in the Salon Carré.  (The Mona Lisa is painted on a piece of poplar wood, and not canvas.)

STEP 3:  Titled "A frame that hinders." Peruggia leaves the Mona Lisa and goes to hide the frame.

STEP 4: "Abandoning the frame".  Peruggia puts the frame in a small service staircase.

STEP 5: "Under the blouse".  Returning to the Salon Carré, he puts the 21 x 30 panel under his workman's smock.

STEP 6: Down the small staircase.  They say Peruggia used the staircase to exit the museum.

STEP 7:  The Cour du Sphinx is an interior courtyard of the Louvre that the small staircase led to.  Peruggia, looking like Inspector Clousseau of the "Pink Panther" films, walks with the painting under his smock.

STEP 8: Peruggia is outside the museum and about to take the Mona Lisa to his Paris apartment.

Excelsior got the basic facts right.  Peruggia did remove the Mona Lisa from the wall  of the Salon Carré. He did take her out of the frame.  He did hide the frame then leave with the painting.  But our research has shown that it was impossible for it to have happened the way Excelsior depicted it.

Tomorrow, we will show why.

A MONA LISA PARADE

Thanksgiving in the U.S.  is not only a day for giving thanks, eating turkey and getting together with friends and family, it's also a day for parades.  So in honor of that, we're posting some 100-year-old parade postcards from France - featuring the Mona Lisa, of course.

These first cards are from the 1912 Carnaval Chalon-Sur-Saône, a town north of Lyon in France.

One of the big floats that year was one showing the theft of the Mona Lisa which had happened some 6 months before.

Here we see the thief taking the Mona Lisa from her frame while a guard sits idly by reading the newspaper.

The Mona Lisa seems to welcome him with open arms. Not sure why.  He's a bit creepy.

The next group is from the Carnaval de Nice which is the oldest carnival celebration in the world, having been established in 1294.  It is held in February every year in Nice on the French Riviera. Again, the theft of the Mona Lisa was a theme on the 1912 celebration.

In the one below, the Mona Lisa is in an airplane.  This is a play on words because in French the word "vol" means "to steal" and well as "to fly."

The flight theme is seen in the postcard below.  It says "The Cahriot of the Mona Lisa" and is from the 1912 mid-Lent Carnaval in Paris.

This next postcard must be from the 1914 Carnaval de Nice because it shows the Mona Lisa returning from Florence to Paris which she did in December, 1913.

There's no information where or when the photo below was taken, but once again -- Mona Lisa.

I particularly like this postcard (below). 

If you look closely, you can see the Mona Lisa's hands are bound with the rope behind held by her captor.

Postcards courtesy of Eileen White, the Medeiros Collection & delcampe.com

THE SLEEPING LOUVRE GUARDS

Why was it so easy for Vincenzo Peruggia to walk out of the Louvre with the Mona Lisa under his arm?  The French press had the answer -- the museum's lazy, inattentive guards.

Here's how these low-paid functionaries were mercilessly depicted.

From Septmeber 1911, less than a month after the theft.

Postcard by the French artist Oren from November 1911

Painting by the artist Louis Beroud

December 1911

Vincenzo Peruggia worked at the Louvre as a glazier.  This cartoon shows a glazier carrying the Mona Lisa past the "watchful" guards.

All hell breaks loose in this cartoon from "Puck"

This guard is saying, "Help me find the Mona Lisa,  please.

Images courtesy of Eileen White, delcampe.com

MONA LISA TRAVELS THE WORLD

After the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa, there was a series of postcards imagining "where the Mona Lisa is today." Cards furnished by my friend and Mona Lisa enthusiast Eileen White.

Maybe Mona Lisa has gone to London...

or New York....

       or even Egypt, traveling with Arséne Lupin,  the famous thief from French literature.

But then, maybe she's just sightseeing in Paris...

or strolling along the Quai d'Orsay...

and fending off advances from Arséne Lupin  at the Moulin Rouge.

Although she could just be cycling through the countryside.

But she's probably doing what every woman loves to do in Paris --- shopping!