When did the Mona Lisa become famous?
Leonardo's Studio, Château du Clos Lucé
Until 1911, when the portrait of Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in Paris, very few knew anything about it.
Leonardo da Vinci’s inner circle in Florence saw it of course, as did the residents of Amboise, a pretty little town in France.
In 1516, the sixty-four year old Leonardo arrived from Italy on, so it’s said, a mule pulling a cartload of books, parchments and what is now known as the Mona Lisa. The young, twenty-two year old king, Francis I, who worshipped Leonardo gave him Cloux * a manor house near Château Amboise to live in until he died. The king encouraged his Court Portrait Painters to go to Leonardo’s studio in Cloux and study the Mona Lisa.
Anyone who was anyone who visited the Court in Amboise was taken to meet Leonardo its guest of honour.
Château du Clos Lucé
The portrait was on show to the general public for three years. So many wanted to see the famous artist and his masterpiece, Leonardo became a tourist attraction (still is) so visits had to be limited to Open Days.
When Leonardo died in 1519, Francis I bought the Mona Lisa for his Château in Fontainebleau near Paris. Not for his famous art gallery, for his bathroom. Very few would have seen it there.
No king of France after Francis I took any interest in the painting. Louis XIII dithered about selling it to Charles I of England. Louis XV didn’t like it so gave permission for his Director of Buildings to have it for his sitting room. Following the French Revolution, it was in Napoleon’s bedroom until 1804 when it ended up in the Louvre Palace which had been converted into a museum.
The Louvre then was nothing like art galleries today, where dead sheep and unmade beds are revered like holy relics. As many paintings as possible were crammed on the walls, not exactly higgledy piggledy but certainly shoulder to shoulder, all jostling for attention.
Displays became more orderly in the 1900s. The Mona Lisa was displayed under a Veronese, between a Titian and a Correggio, three other works of art from the Italian Renaissance,
Although entrance was free, in the main, it was academics and people from the art world, who visited the Louvre.
All that changed when the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911. By the time the Louvre re-opened nine days after the theft and her face was on every front page of every newspaper around the world, people who had never set foot in a museum queued to gaze at an empty space on the wall where Mona Lisa once hung.
On Tuesday 22 August 1911 at 9am the Parisian artist Louis Béroud, went to the Museum to work. As he was setting up his easel he noticed that the Mona Lisa was not in its usual place. He asked the guard where it was. He said it must be in the photo studio. A few hours later, when Béroud asked Mr Poupardin, the museum supervisor, where it was, he was told it had gone missing.
Poupardin sent a telegram to the Director of the Louvre who laughed telling him not to worry, it must be a hoax so he ran to the home of the deputy director who contacted the head of Security.
The Louvre was closed. Borders were closed. Departing ships and trains were searched. Policemen, told to question anyone carrying a rectangular parcel, didn’t know what the portrait looked like so were given a copy.
Investigators found the protective glass and frame under the service stairs. Forensics found a thumbprint on the glass. Guards, curators, plumbers, masons, gardeners, all who worked in the museum had their prints taken.
When the investigation spread to anyone who had worked in the Louvre in the recent past, Vincenzo Peruggia, a thirty-one year old Italian, was interviewed in his Paris bed sit. Despite knowing Peruggia had worked in the Louvre for months so knew all the entrances and exits, despite knowing he had even built and fixed the glass frame Mona Lisa was displayed in, his room was not searched.
Peruggia was told to go to the nearest police station to have his prints taken. He didn’t. He was then summoned twice by the Prefecture but didn’t show up. A Report about him was lost or ignored.
An official enquiry into security at the Louvre revealed it was practically non-existent, the so called guards took naps on the benches and relieved themselves in the stairways. Many rooms had no guard. The Director of the Louvre was sacked.
Two years later, Peruggia, who had the gall to sign his letter Mr Leonard, wrote from Paris to a reputable art dealer in Florence saying he wanted to sell a painting by Leonardo da Vinci for half a million francs. The dealer played it cool and suggested he bring the painting to Florence to be authenticated. He then contacted the Director of The Uffizi Gallery.
On Wednesday, 10 December 1913, for the first time in four hundred years, Mona Lisa was back in Florence.
On Thursday, 11 December 1913 at a quarter past three in the afternoon, in Room 20 of Hotel Tripoli, the Director of the Uffizi could not believe his eyes. In front of him was the Mona Lisa, a painting by the city’s most famous son, one the Gallery would sell its grandmother to own.
On Friday 12 December, 1913 Peruggia, was arrested.
The court case was heard in Florence. He said he was a patriot who wanted Mona Lisa in Florence where she belonged. A local hero to Florentines, he was sentenced to just seven months in jail.
Mona Lisa was exhibited at the Uffizi. The turnout was exceptional. For the first time, thousands had the opportunity to see Leonardo's masterpiece.
On December 30 1913 Mona Lisa was guarded in a sleeping car on the Milan-Paris train. The next day, at the Gare de Lyon in Paris, before a jubilant crowd, the President of the Council welcomed her home.
Upon his release, Peruggia served in the Italian Army in World War I. After the war he had the gall to return to Paris and open a shop selling paints to artists. Never a well man, he died on his forty-fourth birthday.
Peruggia stole the Mona Lisa in 1911. Where had it been for the last two years?
Under his bed in Paris.
When did he decide to steal it?
In 1911, when several paintings were vandalised, the Louvre put many works of art in protective glass cases. Peruggia, a glazier, was contracted to make and fit the cases by the Gobier Glassworks Company which had worked for the Louvre since the reign of Louis-Philippe. Peruggia worked on Mondays when the museum was closed. Hearing his colleagues talking about Napoleon plundering works of art from all over the world, Peruggia, mistakenly, assumed the Mona Lisa was one so decided to return it to Florence.
The problem he faced was, the work having been completed, his Contract had ended. Undeterred, he went to the Louvre Monday 21 August 1911 at seven in the morning in the white smock issued to all Museum workmen. He walked up the great staircase to the first floor. Seeing the gallery was empty, he lifted the Mona Lisa by two inches to release it from its four iron pegs and carried it to the service stairs. Once out of sight, he removed the glass case and frame, took off his smock and wrapped the painting in it.
Some sources mistakenly say he rolled the canvas and put it in his pocket. Not so. Leonardo painted Lisa on a wooden panel.
On the ground floor, taken aback to find himself locked in, Peruggia unscrewed the handle of the exit door just as a museum worker was using his key to open it from the other side.
The huge publicity surrounding the theft launched Mona Lisa into the stratosphere. One commentator said she left the Louvre a work of art and returned an icon.
Of the thirty thousand who visit the Louvre every day, twenty-five thousand go to see Mona Lisa, far and away the most popular painting in the museum. Leonardo, always with an eye to posterity, would be delighted.
* Château Clos Lucé. In 2024 the Château plans to create an International Interpretation Centre on Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.
Post by Pamela (BA History of Art). Photography by Mark.
Leonardo da Vinci
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