WEBVTT - Did Picasso Try to Steal the Mona Lisa? 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.559 You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:12.680 and iHeartRadio. Guess what will? 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:13.440 What's that? 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.079 Mango? So I'm trying to write a poem for the 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:20.439 Mona Lisa and I need little help. Rhyme Zone says 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:23.160 there's no perfect rhyme for Mona Lisa. So what do 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:29.320 you think rhyme's best? Like amnesia anesthesia or moesha? Wait, Mango? 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.640 First of all, why are you writing Mona Lisa poem? 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.360 Because even though there are over a million pieces of 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:37.840 art in the Louver, the Mona Lisa is the only 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.600 one who actually receives her own mail, and people have 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:43.560 been writing to the Mona Lisa since the nineteenth century. 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.919 She even has her own mailbox because the painting is 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.599 so enchanting. So I'm curious, So, like, what what do 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:53.640 people actually write? Some of the letters express how moved 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:56.959 people are by the artwork, and some ask the smirking 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:00.440 Beauty for advice, and some of the letters actually include 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:01.640 marriage proposals. 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:04.160 It is pretty incredible. I love that people have a 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:06.760 parasocial relationship with a piece of art. I think it's 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:08.200 the first time I've heard about this. 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:11.000 Yeah, and it used to be For years you actually 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:12.520 have to make a trip to the Louver to pass 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:14.840 along your fan mail tour. But these days you can 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:18.560 actually post a letter to the museid Louver Service de 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:22.760 public Attention day Mona Lisa, which I've obviously said in 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:26.720 a perfect franch accent, and you nailed it, Mango, So 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:28.440 I figure, why not add to the file. 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.240 Well, in that case, maybe try rhyming Mona Lisa with 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:33.320 milk of Magnesia, Mango. 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:35.920 That's where you would have an answer for me. So 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:38.360 why don't we put the poetry aside for a moment 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:41.760 and dive into today's episode, which is all about the 0:01:41.800 --> 0:02:02.240 Mona Lisa. 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:06.200 Hey, their podcast listeners. I'm Will Pearson and as always 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:08.880 I'm here with my good friend Mango and sitting behind 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.320 that big booth that's our powd Dylan. Now, Mango, I 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:14.200 know I got here a little bit before you did, 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.200 but Dylan was already here. I think he had clocked 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:19.600 in a good half hour before I even sat down, 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:23.480 and he's been holding that weird smile Mona Lisa's style 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:24.720 for the last hour. 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:24.920 Now. 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:25.840 It's really impressive. 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.520 Yeah, it's weird, but it's also really captivating. It's also 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:33.120 crazy that he shaved his eyebrows. I mean, it's just 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.840 spot on to the Mona Lisa. But that's just the 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:40.640 links to Dylan goes to for these bits. It's truly impressive. Anyway, mego, 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.400 let's dive in here. So what is it about the 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:46.000 Mona Lisa that is so captivating? Like? 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:48.200 Why do people stand in lines to get into the 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.440 louver just so they can stand in this huge crowd 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.680 and try to see this painting? Is it just her 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:56.160 smile or like what is it? 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.799 Yeah? So obviously it's not just the smile. First of all, 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:02.920 it's a super good painting, which I believe is a 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:04.720 direct quote from our forum. 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:07.359 Yeah, I think, I think, I think I remember seeing 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.840 that quote. But what makes the painting so unique? Well, 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:12.640 to start with, most sixteenth. 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.680 Century portraits of nobility showed off their social status and 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.520 their wealth with a lot of like flamboyant clothing. So 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.520 the painting's also played up hair styles and accessories. But 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.120 you know, if you've seen the Mona Lisa, which is 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:28.040 believed to be this Italian noble Lisa del Giacondo, it's 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:31.520 unique because she's dressed really simply, all of which draws 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.079 most of the attention straight to her face and that 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.000 weird smile. Yeah, but there's also other stuff, right, So, 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:41.280 typical Italian portraiture used full figure poses, but Mona Lisa 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:45.160 is painted in this revolutionary three fourths length pose. Also, 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.280 she's not stoic or demure, which would be typical of 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:52.600 a female portrait. She's she's turning slightly toward the viewer 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:55.880 and she meets our eyes directly like a man typically would, 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.400 or a man at the time. And Modalsa also showcases 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:04.240 some very vincy techniques. What would those be? Yeah? What 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:09.960 is this technique called sfumtu, which means vanished or evaporated. Basically, 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:14.200 Leonardo would create these imperceptible transitions between light and dark 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.520 by shading the colors really gradually so that the background 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:20.800 fades into the distance. It's almost like adding a blur filter. 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:24.920 And it's another deviation from traditional Italian portraiture of the time, 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.560 which would paint the backgrounds in this same sharp focus 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:32.559 as the central figure. Actually, is this fuma to also 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.960 a drink. Yeah, it's in a marrow, which makes sense 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.720 because if you drink enough smatu, things are going to 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:40.480 get faded into the background. 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.880 Yeah, I just want to say sfumatu over and over. 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:45.919 But this is all cool, But I do think we 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.599 should get back to the Mona Lisa's weird smile. I 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:50.760 know I keep bringing it up, but I feel like 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:51.760 we have to talk about it. 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.400 Yeah, it's the smile that launched a mediocre two thousand 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:56.640 and three movie Emego. 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.840 It's sixty percent on rotten Tomato, so I would say, 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:01.960 I don't sleep on it. 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:02.360 So I was up. 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:05.479 I just, you know, I like to know what it 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:08.640 gets on rotten tomatoes. But I also looked into Mona 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.719 Lisa's smile and it's amazing. Like the preoccupation with the 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.080 painting smile dates back to the Renaissance writer and historian 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:19.880 Giorgio Vasari, and he actually said, in this work of Leonardo, 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.760 there was a smile so pleasing that it was a 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:26.000 thing more divine than human to behold, and it was 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:29.960 held to be something marvelous in that it was alive, 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:35.679 which sounds spooky. It sounds spooky, But he also wasn't 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:38.440 the only one that was so captivated here. So the 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:42.040 treacherous attraction of Moasia's smile is said to have consumed 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:45.880 French artist Luke Maspero too. According to popular myth, Maspero 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.480 allegedly ended his life over it. We actually leapt from 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:51.680 the I know it's crazy. He actually leapt from the 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:55.000 fourth story window of his Paris hotel room, and in 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.560 the note he left behind, he wrote, for years I 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:02.920 have grappled desperately with her smile. I prefer to die. 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:07.640 That's so dramatic, you know, you know, why would a 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:10.320 smile and a painting drive someone so crazy? It it 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:11.400 feels ludicrous. 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:14.919 Well, you know what, there's actually some science here, like, 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:17.520 there are explanations for it. Some people who look at 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.800 the painting think she's not smiling at all, and that's 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:24.279 because the human eye uses two types of vision. There's 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:28.400 fobial and there's peripheral. Now, fobial or direct vision is 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:31.560 excellent at picking up detail, but is less suited to 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:36.120 picking up things like shadows, and so, according to Margaret Livingstone, 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.599 a professor at Harvard Quote, the elusive quality of the 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.479 Mona Lisa smile can be explained by the fact that 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:46.839 her smile is almost entirely in low spatial frequencies and 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:50.560 so is seen best by your peripheral vision. It's almost 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:53.360 like an optical illusion, like the more a person stares 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:56.880 straight ahead, the less their peripheral vision actually works. 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.680 Oh that's really cool. So I'm at the I'm staring 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:02.120 at the Mona Lisa because I want to take it 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:04.680 all in and get my money's worth. But the harder 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:07.159 I stare, the harder it is for my vision to 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:08.159 register that smile. 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.160 That's exactly right. And it's only when you start looking 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:13.720 at other parts of the painting, like the background or 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:16.960 hands or the chair, that's when your eyes really pick 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.960 up on the smile, which could sort of strike you 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:22.360 as alive, right because it's not there, and it suddenly 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.680 appears like Mona Lisa is finally deigned to smile at you, 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:29.240 the sweaty jet lag tourists who's come all the way 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:32.040 to friends to see her. I mean, that's the theory, Mango. 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.400 You know what's funny is that I'm really glad you 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.000 mentioned the chair. Wait, chair? 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:39.520 What did I say about the chair? I don't think 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:40.880 I said anything about the chair, did I. 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.960 Just that it exists? It trikes out chair. The chair 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.400 is one of the most interesting parts of the Mona Lisa, 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:52.200 and one that art historians actually focus on. Specifically, it's 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:56.120 a pozetto chair, which means little well, which some historians 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.880 believe is a reference to the amphibious nature of Mona Lisa. 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.280 She's surrounded by water, she's wearing this green dress, and 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.000 if you know she's sitting on a little well, you 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:07.720 could imagine the rivers behind her are flowing into her. 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:08.520 Mm hmm. 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:12.920 It's obviously a rich and surprising and ingeniously conceived work 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.200 of art. But here's what I've always been stuck on 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.040 with the Mona Lisa. Like the Renaissance had I don't 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:19.920 know if you know this, but a lot of really 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:22.640 super good paintings mego, which. 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:24.640 Also sounds like a quote from Art Forum. 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:27.600 Straight from it. But seriously, I've always wondered what made 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.720 the Mona Lisa stick out amongst all this amazing art, 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:34.280 And through our research, I finally found the answer, Mango, 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:35.880 it's the vibes. 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:40.920 Vibes, Yeah, yeah, well, the vibes and incredible marketing, like 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:43.760 the Mona Lisa is like the Jeremy Allen White of 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.600 Renaissance paintings. I don't even know what that means. 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.120 All right, well, hear me out on this. So even 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:51.640 before it was in the loop. The Mona Lisa started 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.880 out hot like it had this great pedigree. It was 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.680 in the royal collection of the literal King of France, 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.360 Francis I, and who's court Leonardo spent the last years 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.480 of his life. The painting was there for centuries until 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:07.880 the French Revolution claimed the royal collection as the property 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.000 of the people. Then Napoleon took it and placed it 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.080 in his bedroom because he loved it that much, and 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.880 then finally it landed in the Louver. Sure, so there's 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:19.839 like a lot of history there of being owned by 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:23.040 important people. But it was also the heat around Leonardo 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:25.960 dventually that helped grow interest in the Mona Lisa, because 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:29.840 something happened in the nineteenth century where Leonardo became more popular, 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:32.280 you know, see, not only as a very good painter, 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:35.480 but also as a great scientist an inventor of course, 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.880 and many of his so called inventions were later debunked, 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:42.120 and his contributions to science and architecture came to be 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:44.199 seen as you know, less than they might have been 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.120 at first. But this idea of Leonardo as a genius 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:50.280 has continued well into the twenty first century, and that 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.880 of course has contributed to the Mona Lisa's popularity. But 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.280 then there was Marcel Duchamp's contribution to the painting. 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:01.600 So you're talking about Deschamp. The data is too, you know, 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:03.920 made all that fun crazy art, like signed that urinal 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:05.880 and entered it into an art exhibition. 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:09.719 Back guy, Yeah, very same guy. So Duchamp took a 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:12.280 postcard reproduction of the Mona Lisa. This was back in 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:16.160 nineteen nineteen. He drew a beard and mustache on it. 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:18.360 It was like this playful depiction. It was meant to 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.720 be in irreverent commentary about the worship of art. But 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:27.480 he also wrote lhoo q across the bottom of the postcard. 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:32.560 Which sounds like, look right, is that? What's I mean? Exactly? 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.880 Well, it's a vulgar phrase for I guess you could 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:39.880 say she's hot, But the polite translation is there is 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:45.520 fire down below, got it? You've never written that on anything. 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:47.360 Anyway. 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:50.840 The depiction of the Mona Lisa became a huge thing 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.680 to deface of this revered work of art as commentary, 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.880 and before a long other artists followed suit and distorted disfigure. 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:02.080 They played with rep reductions of the Mona Lisa, including 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:06.439 Andy Warhol, actually, over decades, as technology improved, the painting 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:11.520 was endlessly reproduced, sometimes manipulated, sometimes not, and so her 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.040 face became one of the most well known in the world, 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:16.040 even to people who don't really care about art. 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:19.079 Right, so, I may have never been to the Louver 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:21.719 or never even heard of Leo da Vinci, But by 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.760 the twentieth century, even if I hate art, it's hard 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:26.880 to avoid the Mona Lisa's presence. 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.240 That's exactly right. In fact, in the nineteen sixties and seventies, 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.120 the Mona Lisa was so famous she went on tour. 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:35.959 She traveled to the US and a first class cabin 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.320 on an ocean liner threw about forty thousand people a 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.640 day to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City and 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.160 then in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, d C. 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:47.480 And then after that she went on to Japan. 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.280 And of course the popularity was only increased by that 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:54.679 heist too, right, wait, there was a heist. It is 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:57.400 really really fun, But why don't we take a quick 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:58.360 break before we get to that. 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:16.400 Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're discussing the 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.080 Mona Lisa and Mango. You were just telling us about 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.520 an art theft involving da Vinci's most famous painting. 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:25.640 Is that right? That's right. So in nineteen eleven, the 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.080 Mona Lisa had made it to the Louver, a huge 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.880 museum in Paris, literally huge like. At the time, the 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:34.080 Louver was the largest building in the world, with more 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:38.040 than a thousand rooms spread out over forty five acres. 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:40.560 Can you believe, Oh my gosh, that's ridiculous. So what 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:42.480 is the heating bill on a place like that? Can 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:43.200 you imagine? 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.440 Nothing? Because it's France, so it's just cold, all right, 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:50.360 A good point, that's fair. Anyways, it was a quiet 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:52.840 Monday morning in Paris on the twenty first of August 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:56.079 nineteen eleven, and three men were hurrying out of the Louver, 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.600 which is odd that the museum was closed to visitors 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:02.480 on Mondays. The men were Vincenzo Perusia and the brothers, 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:08.720 Vincenzo and Michelle Lancelotti. They're these young Italian handymen. They 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:11.480 had come to the Louver on Sunday afternoon, hidden overnight 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:15.280 in a storeroom near the Salon care A gallery of 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:19.439 Renaissance paintings, and then in the morning wearing white workmen's smocks, 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.240 they went into the salon and seized a small painting 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:25.079 off the wall. They ripped off the glass, shadow box 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:27.280 and frame, and then they went to a stairwell and 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:30.400 Perusia hid the painting under his clothes, and then they 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.079 slipped out of the gallery down a back stairwell, threw 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.160 a side entrance and onto the streets of Paris. And 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.240 so they stole the Mona Lisa. Yeah, they stole the 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.000 Mona Lisa. It took twenty six hours before the louver 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.320 staff even noticed that it was missing. You have to 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:47.960 remember how big the louver is, right, and in nineteen 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.400 eleven there were fewer than one hundred and fifty guards 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:52.199 looking out for all of that art. 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.200 I'm curious, So, like, how did they plan it and 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.400 why did they steal it? Like, give me the Ocean's 0:13:57.440 --> 0:13:59.080 ta plot here mango. 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:02.319 Before in nineteen ten, a letter was mailed to the 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.920 louver from Vienna which threatened the Mona Lisa. So museum 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.640 officials hired a firm named Kobie to put a dozen 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:13.160 of its most prized paintings under glass, and the work 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.040 took three months, and one of the men assigned to 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.360 the project was Vincenzo Perusia who was one of the 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:22.320 thieves and Prussia was this Italian worker on a French 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.760 construction crew, so they teased him a lot. Prusia later 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:29.440 testified in court that they quote almost always called me 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:35.440 Manja Macaroni or Macaroni eater, and very often they stole 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:38.880 my personal property and salted my wine. So he was 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:43.280 getting bull at this French crew. Yeah, and you took 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:46.600 it personally. And some accounts say Prusia was motivated by 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:51.480 national pride and he wanted to repatriate Mona Lisa to Italy. Anyway, 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:53.800 there there was this media explosion when the Louver announced 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.880 the theft. Newspaper headlines were all over the place, you know, 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:00.760 wanted posters for the painting were hung on Regian walls, 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:04.680 and crowds masked at police headquarters. And when the Louver 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:09.520 actually reopened after a week, thousands of spectators, including Franz Kafka, 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:12.600 flooded into the salon to stare at the empty wall 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:16.480 where the Mona Lisa had once been. An empty people 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.280 are so weird, like why would people line up to 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:23.440 stare at a blank wall? I mean the grief was remarkable, right, 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:28.000 like the national outpouring. According to historians, mimicked the shock 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:31.000 of Princess Diana's death and where was the actual painting 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:34.040 being kept during all of this? So Prusia had squirreled 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.240 the Mona Lisa away in this false bottom of a 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.640 wooden trunk in his room at a boardinghouse. And when 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.040 the Parisian police interrogated him as part of all their interviews, 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.280 because they basically interviewed everyone who was working at the 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:48.880 louver at the time, he said he only learned about 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.240 the theft from the newspapers and that the reason he 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.160 was late to work that Monday in August was that 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:55.360 he had drunk too much the night before and overslept. 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.280 But Prusia ultimately wanted money for this world famous painting, 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:03.520 so he twenty eight months, and then in December nineteen thirteen, 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:05.960 he left that boarding house with the trunk and he 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:08.320 took a train to Florence, where he tried to offload 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:12.280 the painting to an art dealer, who promptly called the police. 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:15.480 He then had a brief trial in Florence, pleaded guilty, 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.720 and ended up serving just eight months in prison. I mean, 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:22.040 I guess it's a fairly happy ending of the story, then, yeah, 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:25.120 and the painting actually went on tour in Italy briefly 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:27.880 before it got sent back to France, but that theft 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:30.560 made the Mona Lisa a global icon. In the first 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.200 two days after it was rehung in the Louvers Salon, 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.280 more than one hundred thousand people viewed it, and today 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.160 eight million people see the Mona Lisa every single year. 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:42.200 Wow, it does feel like Prusia should have gotten like 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:44.640 this pr fee or something like that for boosting the 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:45.880 Mona Lisa's profile. 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.520 Yeah, but weirdly, you know, there are actually some conspiracy theories. 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.160 So some said that theft was the French government's way 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:57.280 of trying to distract the public opinion from uprisings in 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:00.800 colonial West Africa. A few months before the was found, 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:03.600 the New York Times speculated that the Louver Restores had 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:06.879 botched a restoration job and that the museum was just 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.440 like concocting this story to cover that up. There was 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:12.840 also a rumor that a gang of international art thieves 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:15.320 had poached the painting and substituted a fake that was 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:17.760 in Perusia's possession when he was caught, which is all 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:22.400 kind of incredible. Whoa really. Yeah, And apparently this Argentinian 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:25.280 also confessed to masterminding the crime. He did this to 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:29.639 American reporter named Carl Decker. He basically said he paid 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.280 Perusia and the other two men to steal the painting 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.720 because the glass box that protected it weighed two hundred pounds, 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:37.800 so you needed a few men on the job. And 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.879 then he said he had six forgeries made and sold 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.359 to private collectors. So for a while there was some 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:45.520 question of whether the Mona Lisa and the Louver was 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.720 the real deal. And then the other conspiracy theory around 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:51.280 the theft was this whole you know Picasso thing. 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:53.440 Wait what Picasso thing? 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.480 Yeah, it's kind of incredible. So during that eighteen month 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.480 period where the French police were not arrested the dudes 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.600 who actually stole the Mona Lisa, they arrested Pablo Picasso 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:08.400 and the poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire. It started when 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:12.119 this guy, Joseph Gary Pierre went to the Paris Journal 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:14.120 and told them that for the past several years he'd 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:16.720 been stealing and then selling minor artwork from the Louver, 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:20.560 and to prove it, Pire produced a small statue that 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:25.040 the Louver curators confirmed with museums, and the police eventually 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:29.040 connected Piree to Apollinaire, who was a member of Picasso's 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:33.320 modernist entourage. They were called labond de Picasso, and there 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:37.560 were this like group of artistic firebrands known around town 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:41.040 as the wild Men of Paris. And it wasn't really 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:43.000 that big a stretch for the police to assume this 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:45.600 ring of art thieves were sophisticated enough to swipe the 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:49.720 Mona Lisa. Of course, neither Apollinaire nor Picasso had played 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.520 any part in that painting's disappearance. 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:54.919 All right, So Picasso and his buddies didn't steal the 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:56.720 Mona Lisa. They were innocent. 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.840 Yeah. Well, the funny thing is they weren't exactly innocent. 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.399 Pierre was telling the truth that Picasso had bought stolen 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:07.600 statues from him and kept them buried in this cupboard 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.800 in his Paris apartment, and you know, later the hardest 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:13.399 pretended ignorance, like he didn't know they were stolen. But 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:15.840 at the bottom of every statue it was stamped in 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:17.720 bold property of de Louver. 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:20.240 That's not a good look. 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:24.960 Yeah, And it got weirder because when pire got put 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:27.040 on trial, it kind of ended up being like this 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.359 massive farce. Picasso and his friends confessed to putting their 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.960 stolen statues in this old suitcase and almost throwing the 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.879 bag into the Seine before realizing they couldn't destroy this 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:43.879 incredible art. So upon Air confesses to everything on the stand, 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:46.800 but he also throws in a lot of lies, and Picasso, 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.240 who normally liked to project, you know, a supermasho image, 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.199 he breaks down and weeps and also says a lot 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:57.679 of nonsense, and it all confuses the judge and he 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.560 gets baffled by the whole thing, and then ultimately just 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:04.560 dismisses the men with a warning. But because's involvement obviously 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:08.600 only brought the Mona Lisa more press, that is so funny, 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:10.920 all right, Well, let's take a moment to talk about 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:14.000 who the Mona Lisa actually is. Like, who is this 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:17.399 woman whose portrait has been reproduced a ridiculous amount of 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:21.080 times for five hundred plus years. Yeah, it's funny because 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:22.679 I feel like there used to be a real mystery 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:24.199 about who the Mona Lisa was. 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:26.600 That's right, But back in two thousand and eight at 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:31.560 German University found conclusive evidence that it's Lisa Gherdini del 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:35.560 ja Condo dated notes from October fifteen oh three, scribbled 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:38.800 in the margins of a book at Heidelberg University's library. 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:42.679 They confirmed that Lisa del Jacondo was indeed the model 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:45.719 and her husband was most likely the man who commissioned 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:49.119 the portrait. The comments comparare Leonardo to the ancient Greek 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:52.000 artist at Pelis, and said he was working on three 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:54.919 paintings at the time, one of them a portrait of 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:56.919 Lisa del Jacondo. 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:58.240 Which sounds pretty conclusive. 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:01.520 Yeah, I will say at c like for almost any 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:05.000 given fact or assertion about the Mona Lisa, there is someone, 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:08.960 often with the fancy Tyler degree who disputes it, of course, 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.560 like anything. But probably the only thing everyone can agree 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.919 on is that it's rectangular. But let's go with the 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:18.760 Lisa del Jacondo theory for just a minute. Like, there's 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:22.480 been this long standing theory that Lisa was or had 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:26.119