The man who stole the portrait, Italian Vincenzo Peruggia, had previously worked at the Louvre. Acting alone, he hid in a cupboard inside the museum on the evening of 20 August and exited on the morning of Monday 21 August – a day when the museum would be closed for cleaning – wearing a smock identical to all the other museum employees. With the museum deserted of visitors, he entered the Salon Carré where the painting hung and simply removed it from the wall.
Making his way to a stairwell, Peruggia removed the glass that had only recently been fitted to protect the painting from vandalism, and discarded the frame. Leaving both the glass and the frame behind he went back through the door with the painting and walked out of the museum unchallenged. Described by some as the greatest art theft of the 20th Century, the museum itself didn’t even realise that the painting had been stolen until the next day. Contrary to some reports it is likely that he wrapped the 53cm x 76cm painting in his smock, rather than concealing it up his shirt, as the painting on its solid plank of poplar wood would have been too big.
The Mona Lisa lay hidden in Peruggia’s apartment in Paris for two years before he decided to take it to Italy in 1913. Here he made contact with Alfredo Geri, a gallery owner, on 10 December who in turn contacted the director of the famous Uffizi gallery. The two men took the painting ‘for safe keeping’ and informed the police.
Peruggia served just six months in jail for the robbery, and was hailed by many Italians as a nationalist hero for returning the Mona Lisa to her real home although it was later returned to France.
