Suspected even Pablo Picasso, who hated museums where "art is hidden from life", so he stole the picture in collusion with his friend Guillaume Apollinaire for avant-garde motives. Silent only the French police, who had nothing to say. The famous detectives, the best in the world at the time, came to a standstill. They found only a frame from the picture, which was very easy because it was quietly lying on one of the service stairs of the Louvre.
The amateur's confession.
From the first pages of the newspaper, the sensational theft of the Gioconda was replaced only by the death of the Titanic, and not for long. History was continued on December 2, 1913, when the Florentine antique dealer Alfredo Geri was a young man who called himself Leonard and offered no less than ... to buy from him "Mona Lisa". Shocked antiquarian went to his hotel, where he saw a masterpiece in a suitcase, full of clothes.
He was arrested. What he had said during his interrogations was almost as stunning as the crime itself. All the romantic versions of spies and provocateurs fantastically trained super robbers, crazy artists and overseas millionaires burst like soap bubbles. Leonard (actually Vincenzo Perugia) was the most ordinary crook.
He worked for some time in the Louvre and took part in the manufacture of the glass box, which was placed "Gioconda". On the day of his abduction, August 21, 1911, when the museum was on weekend, he came to visit his fellow workers, and familiar guards quietly missed him. Once alone in the salon, the cheater opened the box (he did it himself!), took out the painting, took it out of the frame he left on the stairs, hid it under his clothes and took it home. In the room he rented, he put a masterpiece under the mattress and slept on it for two years.
Confessions of a scammer-dilettante disgraced the famous French police. The fact that on the frame remained fingerprints Perugia fingerprints. Since the crook had had had trouble with the law before, his fingerprints were in the police file, but no one bothered to compare them. The great criminologist Bertillon did not like to fool around with prints, believing in his methods.
Perugia was given only a year in prison, as he explained his actions in an attempt to return the masterpiece to the Italian people. Then the guy fought bravely in the war, was not once awarded, and then opened a small shop, where he traded in art paints - yet the craving for art has not gone away.
Fee for popularity.
However, the Gioconda was still unlucky. However, she was not kidnapped anymore, but she got vandals. In 1956, a Bolivian named Hugo Villegas for a very long time stood in front of the picture in the Louvre and then extracted from the pocket of a stone and that was the strength to run in the "Mona Lisa". Got it - since then, the left elbow of Gioconda had a mark, which is not at risk of being taken by restorers. Funny that this Villegas took under the protection of Salvador Dali - the one who said, "fell in love with Gioconda as a mother and suddenly decided that she mocks him". However, in this case, it is not quite clear why to take a stone on a date with "mother", but come on - Dali is Dali.
History almost repeated itself in Tokyo, during the "world tour" of " Gioconda " in 1974. Only this time the role of the stone in the hands of the vandal played a bottle of paint - saved the protective glass. After this incident, "Gioconda" was placed in a special sealed box - bulletproof glass there, the air was pumped out and replaced by helium, which contributes to the safety of the canvas. And in 2005, "Gioconda" settled in a separate room, built specifically for her. There is little in the history of painting canvases with an equally dramatic and bizarre fate! Well, you have to pay for world popularity...