WEBVTT - The Heist That Turned the Mona Lisa Into a Star 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:06.080 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda land Audio in 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:16.280 partnership with I Heart Radio. Every year, millions of people 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:19.239 flocked to the Louver in Paris and elbow each other 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:23.040 for a glimpse at Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, the Mona Lisa. 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:27.400 The gallery where it's house, hosts as many as thirty 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.400 thousand visitors every single day, many of whom specifically visit 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:35.360 the museum to see her. You could say she's popular, 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.440 but there was a time when the Mona Lisa was 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:40.879 not well known, if you can imagine that, and it 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:46.319 took a man named Vincenzo Perugia to launch her into stardom. 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:50.960 Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria tru Marquis and I'm Holly Fry. 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:54.440 The Mona Lisa has been described as quote the best known, 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:58.160 the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:02.440 the most parodied work of art in the world end quote. 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.520 She has been immortalized in everything from Andy Warhol's pop 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.679 art to Dan Brown's best selling novel The Da Vinci Code. 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:13.920 Dais artist Martial Duchamp once caused a stir when he 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.360 painted a mustache on a cheap reproduction of the piece. 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:21.800 Italian master Leonardo da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:25.920 in Florence, Italy in fifteen o three or possibly fifteen 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:30.800 o four, and probably completed it uh well. No one 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:35.040 is certain when exactly he completed it. Some historians consider 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:37.720 the painting to have been completed in about three or 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:40.720 four years, although others suggest that it could have been 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.600 finished any time up to the artist's death in fifteen nineteen. 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:47.840 It was then when the King of France, Francois the 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:51.400 First purchased the work to hang in Fontainebleau, said to 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:55.480 have been his favorite palace place. Fontainebleau was its home 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.000 for more than a hundred years, until King Louis the 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:02.000 fourteenth took the painting to the newly built Palace of Versailles. 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:05.960 After the French Revolution, the Mona Lisa found itself hanging 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.639 in Napoleon Bonaparte's bedroom in the Tuilerie for a few 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.639 years before it was finally installed in its permanent home 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.160 at the Louver and that is where you'll find her 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:19.720 still today. She is hung in the Salle des Eta, 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:24.320 that is room seven one one. The portrait and really 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.680 it's so well known we probably don't even really need 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.680 to describe any of this, but just real quick, imagine her. 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:34.359 She is a woman dressed in Florentine fashion and pictured 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.960 seated in a mountainous landscape. The work is a half 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:40.920 length portrait painted in oil on a poplar panel, and 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:44.560 if you haven't seen it in person, it's actually quite 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:48.639 smaller than many people imagine. It's roughly two and a 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:52.720 half by two ft or seventy seven by fifty three centimeters. 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:56.000 The piece is a just just a beautiful example of 0:02:56.080 --> 0:03:01.120 this auto technique, which basically translates from Italian English as 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:06.679 to Vanish like smoke. So this style creates subtle transitions 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:10.760 between light and shadow and between colors. But it's the 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:15.800 subject's enigmatic expression, though, which has given the portrait universal fame. 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.240 So the Mona Lisa, as Maria just alluded to, is 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:24.120 known for her half smile, but Da Vinci's subject has 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.840 been talked about and debated for centuries. One of the 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.240 most common things said about the piece is that the 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:33.359 subject eyes follow you. But we can put that one 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.880 to rest because in a study published in the journal Perception, 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:41.840 German scholars found that she is actually looking Dona. I 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.880 know it's suspenseful to the right. Anything else that you 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:49.920 perceive is just your imagination. Some people claim that there 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.680 is a hidden code in her eyes. Others are certain 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:56.840 that the work is actually a portrait of da Vinci himself, 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:01.240 an artist's self portrait. Today experts are pretty darn sure 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.720 that Italian noblewoman Lisa Gerardini, that was the wife of 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.720 Italian merchant Francesco del Giocondo, is the face of the 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:13.040 Mona Lisa. We know the Mona Lisa as an iconic 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.279 piece of artwork of the Renaissance, and it's considered nearly 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:22.200 impossible to value because it's simply priceless. Really, it was 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.800 assessed before it once traveled from Paris to to Washington, 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.000 d c. And then New York City for a special 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.679 exhibition held between December of nineteen sixty two and March 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:34.400 of nineteen sixty three, and it was at that time 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.760 when it entered the Guinness Book of Records for being 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:41.240 given the highest known insurance evaluation for a painting, a 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.800 hundred million dollars, and that has helped make it the 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:49.599 target of theft and vandalism. On several occasions. The Mona 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:53.880 Lisa has been spray painted. It's been mugged, most recently caked. 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.400 In nineteen fifty six alone, two people tried to vandalize 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.440 the work on separate occasions. In the face of so 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.919 much potential damage, Spanish artist Salvador Dolli once attributed to 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:09.320 the painting a quote power unique in all art history 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:13.360 to provoke the most violent and different kinds of aggressions. 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.040 The first attack on the Mona Lisa was in nineteen 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:22.120 fifty six during an exhibition in Montaubon, France, when a 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:25.599 visitor through acid at the work. At the end of 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:29.280 December that same year, a man named Hugo Unyaga Viegas 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.080 threw a rock at the painting. He said at the 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:34.720 time quote, I had a stone in my pocket and 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:39.000 suddenly the idea to throw it came to mind. Viega's 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.760 rock did not do permanent damage to the painting, although 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.719 it did manage to damage a small area of the paint. 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.640 The Mona Lisa was repaired by experts with the French State. 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.600 It was back on exhibit just days after the incident, 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:54.880 but after such a year the decision was made to 0:05:54.960 --> 0:06:00.320 place the piece behind protective glass. The Mona Lisa has 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:04.719 actually rarely ever left the louver Or France, but in 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.360 the nineteen seventies it won on a tour that included 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:11.320 exhibition in Japan. In nineteen seventy four, nearly one and 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:13.960 a half million people reportedly saw the painting when it 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:17.400 traveled to the National Museum in Tokyo, and in April, 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.360 during the tour, twenty five year old Tomiko Yosu tried 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:25.760 to spray the work with red paint. Unlike the in 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.880 the Moment idea to throw a random rock at the masterpiece, 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.920 her attack was politically motivated. In the days leading up 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.240 to the show's opening, disability activists had raised a red 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:39.760 flag about the exhibit, stating that in refusing access to 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:43.960 those who needed assistance, the National Museum was discriminating against 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:48.440 those living with disability. Yonezu, in an effort to call 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.160 attention to this, hit the Mona Lisa Well. She hit 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:55.720 the Mona Lisa's protective glass to be clear, with an 0:06:55.880 --> 0:07:00.640 estimated twenty to thirty drops of spray paint. She was 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.240 detained and in nive. She was convicted of a misdemeanor 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:08.039 and fined three thousand yen her brazen vandalism, Though did 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:12.320 affect a change. Tokyo's National Museum announced it would set 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:15.880 aside a day when those with disabilities could exclusively visit 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:20.840 the Mona Lisa. And then things went pretty quietly for 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:24.320 the Mona Lisa for a little while until two thousand nine, 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:28.000 more than thirty years after that spray paint incident. In 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:31.960 August that year, the painting was again attacked, this time 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.240 with a teacup. The scene that day went like this. 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.480 Approaching the painting, a woman reached into her purse, grabbed 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.720 the now infamous mug and threw it directly at the 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:46.640 face of Mona Lisa. The mug shattered, but the artwork 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:51.120 remained undisturbed. Remember it's under that protective glass. According to 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.000 a spokesperson for the Louver at the time, the woman 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:58.200 had been upset over being denied French citizenship. The museum's 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.080 statement to The New York Times also included that quote 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:04.200 viewing was only disturbed the time it took to pick 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:08.720 up the pieces. And then there was a very recent 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:13.840 attack at Loop in May a man in his thirties 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:17.360 disguised as an elderly woman in a wheelchair through what 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:24.120 museum officials later described as a concealed partistory at the painting. Again, 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.720 the protective glass installed prevented any damage to the piece. 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.800 It not the Mona Lisa was smeared with pastry cream. 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:35.760 Museum officials suggested that the protester himself, not living with 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.520 the disability, faking it, chose to use the wheelchair to 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:44.479 exploit their reduced mobility policy, which allowed him closer access 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:48.480 to the painting. The vandal before being apprehended through rose 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.520 petals on the ground while shouting think of the earth. 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:55.000 There are people who are destroying the earth. Think about it. 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:58.120 Artists tell you think of the earth. That's why I 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.880 did this. But it was actually the theft of this 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:06.800 painting in nineteen eleven. Yes, I'm actual theft, not vandalism, 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.079 that turned the Mona Lisa into one of the world's 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:13.480 most instantly recognizable images. That's right. And with that though, 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:15.280 we're going to take a break for a word from 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:18.400 our sponsor. But when we return, we will introduce the 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:22.440 man who made the Mona Lisa a household name, Vincenzo Peruggia. 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:40.719 Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's tell the story about the 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:46.360 day the Mona Lisa disappeared. The louver was closed from 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.000 maintenance on August nineteen eleven, the day the Mona Lisa 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:54.920 went missing. That morning, a small mustachioed Italian man named 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:59.520 Vincenzo Peruggia, dressed in the standard uniform of a Parisian handyman, 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:05.199 which was a white worker's smock, entered the museum, probably 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:09.120 maybe with other maintenance workers, and made his way to 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.000 the gallery where the Mona Lisa hung. He removed the 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:16.240 painting from its two hundred pound framed enclosure, tucking the 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.760 small panel under his smock. He then, well, he then 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.160 just kind of walked out into the streets of Paris. 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:25.760 There is a version of this high story that hasn't 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:28.080 added detail, though, and it adds a little bit of 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:32.280 a dramatic twist, and it goes like this. Perugia hid 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.360 in a storage room overnight, planning to escape with the 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:37.760 painting in the morning, but when he tried to get out, 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:41.160 he discovered the door was locked. He removed the door knob, 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:44.960 but it still would not open until that is a 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:47.880 helpful plumber passing by in the hallway lent a hand 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.800 and opened the door for him. We have no idea 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:54.160 if this detail actually happened, but it's a fun story. 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.760 Door knob or no door knob, there is more no 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.400 thing about the theft was discovered until a wealthy museum 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.840 patron and visiting artist, a man named Louis Berud, arrived 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.800 to sketch works in the Salon care That was the 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.920 gallery where the Mona Lisa was at the time exhibited, 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:17.760 but where he expected to see da Vinci's masterpiece, he 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.559 found only blank wall space. Of course, he reported it 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:30.400 immediately right well so, because the Louver routinely removed works 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:35.000 from its galleries for photographing, it actually wouldn't have been 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.719 out of the ordinary to notice that a painting was 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:42.840 missing and to think nothing of its absence. And several 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:46.000 hours went by before the man notified the guards. We 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.920 did read that from the steel to the missing painting 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:54.040 report or whatever that may be technically called. As many 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:58.360 as possibly twenty six hours may have passed before anyone 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:02.080 noticed that the Mona Lisa had left the building. It 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.520 wasn't until later that evening, after the paintings frame was 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:09.360 discovered in the service stairwell, that museum officials announced the 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:13.880 Mona Lisa had been stolen. That frame, incidentally, had been 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.320 donated by Countess de Bienne just two years prior and 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:21.840 had not been damaged during the heist, stated museum officials, quote, 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:25.160 the Mona Lisa is gone. Thus far, we haven't a 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:29.040 clue as to who might have committed the crime. Curator 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:31.920 George Beneditte told the press at the time, and we're 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.560 paraphrasing him here, that only a practical joker would steal 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:38.440 such a prized painting because it would just be too 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:42.200 difficult to fence. And the director of National Museums at 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:46.120 the time, a man named Jean Philamole, who was vacationing 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.360 when the Mona Lisa was stolen, stated in reaction to 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:53.000 the news that it must have been simply misplaced, adding quote, 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:55.640 you might as well pretend that one could steal the 0:12:55.720 --> 0:13:00.960 towers of Notre Dame. Francis Gendarme had an alternate theory. 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.200 They believed that the thief would demand ransom within forty 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:08.560 eight hours. Two days passed, though, and nobody came forward. 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:14.440 The entire country of France was stunned at this fact, 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.200 and there were many theories circulating as to what could 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:21.520 have become of the Mona Lisa. One popular Parisian magazine 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:26.960 wondered what what audacious criminal? What mystifier? What maniac collector? 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:32.880 What insane lover has committed this subduction? What insane lover 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.839 has committed this? I want that on my tumb stone. 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:45.120 What insane loverbduction? I mean I want to be cremated. 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.800 But still you can marker. I can still say something. 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:52.079 Right there you go. In addition to the frame found 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:56.120 in the stairwell, some reports suggest that later in the investigation, 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.320 guards spoke with a plumber who were called helping a 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:01.959 man who was locked in a stairwell, So that kind 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:04.640 of leads into that little detail we talked about earlier. 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:09.120 But back to that frame, there was a single thumb 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:14.000 print found on it. Harris police inspector Alphonse Bertillon was 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.719 the first to recognize the value of fingerprints in law enforcement, 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:21.160 and as an aside, he's also credited with developing the 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:25.800 mug shot. He had, it's reported, hundreds of thousands of 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:29.040 prints on file, too many to check against the one 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:33.160 found on the frame, so instead he fingerprinted all two 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:35.960 hundred fifty seven employees who had been working at the 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:40.400 museum that day. Perugia had briefly worked for a firm 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:43.320 that cut glass for the Louver, although we did find 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:46.800 some reports suggesting that he had actually just been an 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:50.080 employee of the museum, but that's a little unclear, and 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:54.160 we don't know if he was fingerprinted. Detectives dusted for 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:59.720 fingerprints and questioned witnesses. Cars and pedestrians were stopped and 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.800 searched at checkpoints throughout the city, and officials circulated those 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:08.680 wanted style posters of the Mona Lisa's face. The New 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.320 York Times wrote that quote, a great number of citizens 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:16.760 have turned amateur Sherlock Holmes is and continued to advance 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:21.720 most extraordinary theories. Some thought a forgery ring thieved it, 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.840 and we're selling knockoffs to wealthy but naive art patrons. 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:28.960 Others argued that the man behind the theft had to 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.760 be banking magnet JP Morgan, who many believed to be 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:37.120 a robber baron, and who many believed had surely commissioned 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:41.360 this heist for his own private art collection. One popular 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:45.440 rumor in Paris specifically was that Germans had stolen it. 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:50.960 There were many, many, many theories here. When French police 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:54.960 distributed six thousand, five hundred leaflets about the theft and 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:59.480 announced a reward for forty Francs for its return. People 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:03.560 started to turn on each other, Neighbors informed on neighbors. 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:07.000 There were stories of alleged sightings of the painting in 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:11.120 places as far away as Russia and Japan, despite no 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:14.400 good leads on the Mona Lisa's whereabouts. As an aside, 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:18.360 the museum did, in the process recover some other stolen 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:22.320 loot that was unrelated to this particular theme. There you go. 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.960 I really love that we got something. I didn't even 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:32.440 know this was missing. This was a big, big story 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:35.960 for news media, and their coverage of the heist helped 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:41.240 turn the work into a notable and recognizable piece of art. Suddenly, 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.280 the face of the Mona Lisa was everywhere as a 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.360 modern audience, It's got hard to grasp that. When The 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.040 Washington Post first reported about the theft and appraised the 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:55.680 paintings value at five million dollars, the newspaper mistakenly ran 0:16:55.800 --> 0:17:00.440 a picture of the Mona Vanna, which is a distly 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:04.080 different piece of art. The Mona Vanna is a nude 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.560 charcoal sketch that some art historians theorized I and She 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.639 might have drawn in preparation for painting the Mona Lisa, 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:15.520 but maybe not either way, it's definitely not the Mona Lisa, 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.200 and so that's I mean, that's actually really a great 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:22.040 example of how unknown this work was before it was stolen. 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:27.040 Noah Charney, art history professor, author of the Thefts of 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.760 the Mona Lisa and founder of the Association for Research 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.520 into Crimes Against Art, has said, quote, if a different 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:38.520 one of Leonardo's works had been stolen, then that would 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.680 have been the most famous work in the world, not 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:45.800 the Mona Lisa. He added, quote, there was nothing that 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.919 really distinguished it per se other than it was a 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:52.560 very good work by a very famous artist. That's until 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.000 it was stolen. The theft is what really skyrocketed its 0:17:56.000 --> 0:18:00.080 appeal and made it a household name. At first, a 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:03.240 color reproduction was hung in the Mona Lisa's place at 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:08.040 the Louver. Then, in December nineteen twelve, Raphael's portrait of 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:13.000 Baldisser Castiglione was exhibited there. The investigation remained open, but 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:17.639 after two years there were very few leads. On September seventh, 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:21.560 nineteen eleven, avant garde writer Guillaume at Pollonier, who had 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:24.240 once called for the Louver to be burned down, was 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.960 arrested and held on suspicion of theft of the Mona Lisa. 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:31.879 A Polonaire became a suspect after one of two things happened. 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:36.639 His chapter in this story is told two different ways. One, 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:40.159 authorities were able to link missing figurine stolen from the 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:44.440 Louver to one of his former assistants, Gary Pierre, who 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:48.040 was also a small time thief, and Pierre spilled the 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.919 beans on the artist. Alternatively, there is a version that 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:55.200 suggests that a Pollonaire and Pierre had a falling out 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.680 and Pire told the Paris Journal newspaper that he had 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:03.320 information on the Mona Lisa to information that included a Pollinaire. 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.159 Regardless of which version of the story you hear, the 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:11.240 outcome was the same. A Pollinaire was exonerated of all 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:15.480 charges and he was released, But during his time in custody, 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:19.280 he did implicate his friend, Spanish artist Pablo Picasso in 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:24.680 the theft. Picasso had purchased Iberian bronze age statue stolen 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.800 by Pierre. That's a detail we can't be sure if 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:31.280 Picasso knew about or not, but he had purchased those 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:33.600 to use his models in his paintings and you can 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:37.199 see them in his work. Les Demoiselle d'Avignon is a 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.600 piece that's considered to have ushered in the style of Cubism, 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.520 and those models were used for it. After questioning, though 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.760 authorities dismissed Picasso as a suspect, they did seem to 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:53.879 talk to everyone, and they even interviewed Perugia twice. In 0:19:56.600 --> 0:20:00.440 his apartment at five Rue Delpita, Saint Luis Us, three 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:04.000 miles from the museum. They interviewed him before concluding that 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:08.520 he could not be their man. His alibi, well, we 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:10.959 came across too in the research. Although the first one 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:13.960 is much more commonly reported. That first one is that 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.520 Perusia may have claimed that he had been working at 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:20.199 a different location the day of the theft. The second 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.600 one suggests that Perusia may have replied that he learned 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:26.359 of the theft from reading about it in the newspapers, 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:28.560 and that the reason he was late to work that 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:31.320 Monday in August was that he had drunk too much 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:36.159 the night before and overslept. Regardless, we know he did it. 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:41.159 What authorities did not know though, at the time, was 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:44.000 that they were actually in the presence of the mona 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:47.960 Lisa during those interviews. It was stashed in the false 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:51.720 bottom of a trunk in Perusia's apartment while they were 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:55.720 there questioning him. So with the Mona Lisa case, at 0:20:55.800 --> 0:21:00.239 this point, the authorities were completely stuck. We are going 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:02.560 to take a break for a word from our sponsor now, 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:05.200 and when we're back, we will talk about the letter 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:09.240 that Perugia sent to a dealer in Florence and the 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:28.560 reply he received. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:33.560 Perugia's mistakes and his subsequent arrest. The image of the 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:38.400 Mona Lisa was, as we have said, suddenly splashed across 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:44.400 front pages of newspapers around the world. Sixty detectives seek 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:48.679 stolen Mona Lisa. French public indignant, reported The New York Times. 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:52.400 Said author and historian Charnee Quote. The museum had over 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:56.080 four hundred rooms, but only two guards and even fewer 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.920 on duty overnight. There were basically no alarms in play. 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:04.080 It was under secure, but to be fair, most museums 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:08.399 were at that time. The theft, he continued, Quote, launched 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:10.959 the painting into becoming a household name for people who 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:13.640 had never been to Europe and had no interest in art, 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:17.760 and it's really just continued from there. In fact, for 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:20.359 the very first time, there were accused of people outside 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:23.680 the louver. Among them were famous names, including writers Franz 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:27.040 Kafka and Max Broade, each waiting for their chance to 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:30.040 see the empty space where the painting should have been 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:34.480 on the wall. As the theft gained more and more 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:39.320 press attention, both within France and internationally, Perusia kept the 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:42.720 painting hidden and it just sat there in his apartment. 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:47.040 According to Christopher Marinello of Art Recovery International, which is 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:51.080 a company that provides art recovery services to museums as 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:55.040 well as to private collectors, Perusia's behavior of stealing and 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:58.439 hiding a painting for years is actually a pretty common 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:02.000 thing among art thieves, he says. Quote. A typical art 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.119 thief tries to get money. When they can't hide it, 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:08.359 they store it until they can get money. As soon 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:12.399 as art is stolen, it decreases in value. This happened 0:23:12.400 --> 0:23:15.959 even in the eighteen hundreds when there was no Internet. Today, 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:19.440 everyone knows about every single art theft, whether a turn 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:22.800 of the century Matisse painting or a seven foot garden no. 0:23:23.720 --> 0:23:26.560 The Prefect of the Police had several theories, and was 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:29.160 quoted in a nineteen twelve article in The New York 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:33.240 Times as saying, the thieves, I am inclined to think 0:23:33.480 --> 0:23:36.520 there were more than one, got away with it all right. 0:23:37.119 --> 0:23:40.240 So far nothing is known of their identity and whereabouts. 0:23:40.720 --> 0:23:43.960 I am certain that the motive was not a political one. 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:46.920 But maybe it is a case of sabotage brought about 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:51.960 by discontent among Louver employees. Possibly, on the other hand, 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:55.880 the theft was committed by a maniac. A more serious 0:23:55.960 --> 0:23:59.679 possibility is that La Giaconda was stolen by someone who 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:05.040 ends to make a monetary profit by blackmailing the government. Yeah, 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:07.480 just in case you didn't recognize. La Gia Conde is 0:24:07.480 --> 0:24:09.640 another name for the Mona Lisa, based on the fact 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:14.480 that it is probably Lisa Giacondo in the work. So yes. 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:19.040 Unbeknownst to everyone at this point, everyone but Perugia, of course, 0:24:19.480 --> 0:24:23.240 the Mona Lisa was actually still in Paris, and then 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:26.879 Perugia made an attempt to sell it to a man 0:24:27.000 --> 0:24:31.800 named Alfredo Gary, a Florentine antique dealer who frequently advertised 0:24:31.840 --> 0:24:37.679 for fine art in several Italian newspapers. On November Gary 0:24:37.840 --> 0:24:41.879 received a letter postmark from Paris regarding the potential sale 0:24:42.160 --> 0:24:45.399 of the Mona Lisa, details of which would be agreed 0:24:45.480 --> 0:24:50.000 upon during a personal meaning. That letter was signed Leonardo, 0:24:50.800 --> 0:24:53.879 but the sale backfired when the dealer called on Giovanni Pogi, 0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:57.399 director of the Ofizi Galleries in Florence, for an appraisal, 0:24:57.920 --> 0:25:00.200 and set up a meeting with Perugia and poe Gi 0:25:00.400 --> 0:25:04.159 in Milan. The men gathered in Perugia's room at the 0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:07.640 Tripoli Italian Hotel, where he removed it from its red 0:25:07.760 --> 0:25:11.520 silk wrapping. Gary later wrote, quote, we placed it on 0:25:11.640 --> 0:25:15.359 the bed, and to our astonished eyes, the divine Mona 0:25:15.440 --> 0:25:20.800 Lisa appeared intact and marvelously preserved. Pogi confirmed that yes, 0:25:21.000 --> 0:25:24.320 this was the original work, and he convinced Perugia to 0:25:24.440 --> 0:25:28.080 leave it with him at the Effizi for safekeeping. Perugia 0:25:28.160 --> 0:25:31.840 demanded one hundred thousand dollars in expenses, and they agreed 0:25:31.880 --> 0:25:34.920 to both that and to his selling price half a 0:25:34.960 --> 0:25:39.159 million lira. We did, however, see that asking price alternately 0:25:39.200 --> 0:25:41.960 referenced as half a million francs. In any case, he 0:25:42.040 --> 0:25:44.800 wanted a lot of money for it, although not anywhere 0:25:44.840 --> 0:25:48.840 close to what it was worth regardless. Though the men 0:25:48.960 --> 0:25:52.040 did not go to the bank. They instead contacted the 0:25:52.119 --> 0:25:57.440 Italian police, and on December twel Mona Lisa was recovered 0:25:57.680 --> 0:26:01.359 in Florence, Italy. The painting was returned to Paris, but 0:26:01.600 --> 0:26:04.480 first was exhibited at the Uffizi through the end of 0:26:04.520 --> 0:26:08.679 the year. It's estimated that at least add people visited 0:26:08.720 --> 0:26:12.480 the painting in the first two days after it was 0:26:12.560 --> 0:26:16.600 reinstalled in that empty spot on the wall. Yeah, to 0:26:16.680 --> 0:26:19.119 give you context for how many people that is, if 0:26:19.160 --> 0:26:21.080