It was August 21, 1911, the middle of a stretch of endless 90-degree days in Paris, and one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century was happening and nobody noticed.
Brigadier Maximillien Alphonse Pauparin guard in the Salon Carré had served in the French military but had no idea what he was about to face on the morning of August 21, 1911. At the time only former military officers served as guides in the Louvre, not so much now.
In 1911 two paintings were slashed and the Louvre knew the most important pieces needed to be protected behind glass in new security frames, Mona Lisa was the first. The A. Gobier company had been replacing windows in the Louvre and was tasked with the protecting of the paintings. Made up of French workers and one Italian which we shall get to in a bit.
The Louvre was closed on Monday, August 20 and only a handful of guards and staff had been in the Salon Carré after 10 am and nothing seemed off.
Louis Béroud copyist and artist on August 21 arrived just after the Louvre opened at 10 am and took his easel to the Salon Carré ready to create a painting that involved a copy of the Mona Lisa. As he walked to the wall he noticed a large hole in the place where she normally hung.
At the time the paintings in the smaller Salon Carré hung within inches of each other on the wall, much closer than they are now, so a large hole should have been pretty easy to spot. Béroud walked over to Pauparin and asked where the Mona Lisa was. The brigadier scoffed and said it had to be in the photo studio as they removed paintings all the time without alerting anyone. He decided to venture down to ask when she would be back but stopped on the way for a long cigarette break before popping in.
As he arrived at the studio and asked, “Ou est La Joconde” he was met with shocked expressions and then the panic set in. It was noon on August 21 and the darling of Leonard da Vinci had been gone for two days they just hadn’t realized that yet.
As we look back on the events of August 1911 it appears to be the perfect crime although it would never happen today. When a very upset Brigadier Maximillien Alphonse Pauparin was questioned about the woman he saw every day he said “Mon Dieu, she was there Sunday night when the museum closed.”
In his years at his post, he saw many things. Lovelorn men brought her flowers and letters pledging their undying love to her and one man was even said to have killed himself in front of her, I haven’t found any info to back that up but does make for an interesting little addition.
One young German man was so devoted to her that his story spread around the world.
Director of the Louvre Théophile Homolle was on vacation in Mexico at the time and when contacted he joked that the theft of the Mona Lisa would be like someone stealing the towers of Notre Dame. He was fired from his job upon his return.
Acting director and curator Léonce Bénédite contacted the Palais de Justice to alert them of the unimaginable. Just after 1 pm Prefect of the police Louis Lepine arrived at the now-closed Louvre to investigate. The theft was kept very quiet and the crowd and staff were told that a water main had broken but the rumors began to spread.
Lepine brought Alphonse Bartillon who served as the chief of judicial identity and had been working on a new form of identifying people through fingerprints and profiling. The entire staff was called in and fingerprints on the right hand were taken.
In searching the Louvre, the newly created security frame was discovered in a hidden stairwell that was only used for staff on Mondays. Lepine believed the thief had to have had knowledge of the Louvre and had worked there. An interrogation of the staff was launched and it was a plumber named Jules Sauve who gave the only clue they had to go on.
At 9 am on Tuesday, he arrived to hear someone knocking on a door at the base of the staircase leading to the Cour du Sphinx. The doorknob had fallen off on the outside and the thief was trapped. Sauve graciously opened the door with some pliers and saw the man with a white Louvre coat on and with a quick bonjour et merci they were both on their way. When Lepine had the plumber in for questioning his suspicions were correct, it had to be an inside job. The doorknob was then found tossed in the Jardin de L’Enfant.
At the time of the theft, the Mona Lisa hung on the north wall of the Salon Carré below Veronese Wedding Feast of Cana and between Allegorie Conjugale by Titian and Correggio’s Mystic Mariage with its clear influence of Leonardo.
August 22 Le Temps broke the story and by the next day, the theft was on the front page around the world.
Back in the Louvre, they searched high and low for more evidence. A partial print of the left hand was found on the casing of the frame but at the time they had only been taking prints from the right hand. With little to go on the Louvre thought she may be gone forever.
One week later on Monday, August 28, the search of the Louvre was finished and the museum would reopen the next day.
On Tuesday, August 29, 1911, at 10 am the Musée du Louvre opened its doors to thousands waiting in a two-hour line to enter for a glimpse of the wall where the Lady of the Louvre once hung. Surrounding the now empty wall were four policemen and six museum guards as well as many undercover agents in the crowd hoping the thief may make a return. Of the thousands of people that came many brought notes and flowers to leave on the distinctive parquet floor. Outside the doors, trinket sellers peddled anything they could with her image on it and even some entrepreneurial prostitutes hid in the shadows waiting for clients.
Security at the Musée du Louvre had been pretty laughable for quite some time. Reporters hid in a sarcophagus overnight to test the security and even stole small pieces to see if they could get away with it, and they did. When the Louvre reopened on the 29th guests were also greeted by two very angry dogs, Jack and Milord, and a slew of security guards.
Apollinaire & Picasso
Poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire & Pablo Picasso read the headlines in the paper just like everyone else in the world.
The two friends were now in a panic to rid themselves of stolen objects from the Louvre. At midnight on September 5, the two men packed the pieces into a suitcase and worried they would be captured riding in the metro or on a bus walking from his studio in Montmartre to the Seine River. Once there they were afraid they would be seen and decided to walk back up to Montmartre with the heavy suitcase in tow.
Earlier that day, Apollinaire paid a visit to the Paris Journal to share that he may know who stole the Mona Lisa and turned in the objects. Confessing that a friend but the fictional name, of Baron Ignace d’Ormesan from time to time would steal small sculptures from the Louvre. Guillaume and Picasso benefited from his stolen loot and thought they would do the right thing and tell the authorities.
On September 6 the front page of the Paris Journal broke “L’Affaire des Statuettes” which also alerted the police who paid a visit to Apollinaire and brought him in for questioning. The thief’s real name was Honoré Joseph Géry Pieret-Belgien who also worked as a secretary for the writer. The same morning the police paid a visit to the Boulevard de Clichy and the apartment of Picasso. When questioned he said he never heard of Apollinaire and was released later that day. Apollinaire wasn’t as lucky and was held for a week. It would be the only lead and arrest the French police had in the theft of the Mona Lisa and it was a dead end. The incident would ruin the friendship of the artist and writer and would be one of Picasso’s few regrets in his life.
‘Groupe d’artistes by Marie Laurencin (1908) – Pablo Picasso, Marie Laurencin herself, Apollinaire and Fernande Olivier
At the advent of WWI, Apollinaire decided to become a French citizen and enlisted in the war, which would last until a piece of shrapnel tore through his helmet almost killing him. The injury would alter his mind forever and he would die on November 9, two short years later at 38 in 1918, and laid to rest in Père-Lachaise.
At the end of the year, the trail for clues had long been cold. When stolen she hung on the north wall of the Salon Carré named for the annual Salon which was the only opportunity for artists to share their work with the public. In February 1912, the spot that had been left empty was a makeshift shrine until officials decided to move Raphael’s, Baldassare de Castiglione into her place. In 1528, Castiglione published his “le Livre de Courtisan” filled with the stories of court life in Italy, a 16th-century Downtown Abbey. Close to the same size and more importantly the subject was posed in much of the same way as Lisa. Raphael had briefly seen the painting while Leonardo worked on her.
In January 1913, the updated catalog of the Louvre was released and Leonardo’s Mona Lisa as wasn’t a part of its collection. The trail had run cold and the case had been closed. They believed she would never return home again.
Baldassare de Castiglione by Raphael 1514 located in the Grande Galerie of the Musée du Louvre
How did what appears to be close to the perfect crime happen?
The Theft Itself
On a hot Sunday, August 19, 1911, at around 4 pm. Vincenzo Peruggia entered the Musée du Louvre just like any other visitor. In the final moments as the museum closed and guards were ushering people out Peruggia slid into a storage closet just off the Salon Carré. Overnight with a chunk of cheese, a small bottle of wine, and some bread, he worked his way over to the north wall and wrestled the 90-pound painting in its new double frame off the wall.
This was long before the days of cameras and alarm systems and one could easily hide in the Louvre overnight and wander around, how dreamy.
At 6:30 am on Monday, August 20 the Louvre was closed to the public. Peruggia in his white Louvre coat walked through the Grande Galerie, Salle des Sept-Metres to a small staircase in the corner backing to the Grande Galerie only used on Mondays by employees. When he arrived at the ground floor the door was locked. Using the screwdriver he brought to remove Lisa from the wall he was able to remove the door knob but it only made matters worst.
One report states that Peruggia was joined by two men who assisted in lifting her off the wall.
Over time Peruggia’s version of the theft changed, including that he carried her off and by Winged Victory with a grand farewell before his escape.
Employees of the Louvre just began to move around for the day and plumber Jules Sauve heard knocking as he walked by. With a wrench, Sauve opened the door and let who would be the most wanted man in the world in a matter of 24 hours out the door and away with the priceless painting. Walking out the Cour Visconti with Mona under his arm he tossed the doorknob and jumped onto a bus that would take him home to the 10th arrondissement.
Vincenzo stayed in his small apartment at 5 Rue de l’Hopital Saint Louis overnight and into the next day. On the morning of August 21 when it was discovered she was gone, Vincenzo stayed home with the grand lady in his closet.
When the entire staff of the Louvre was called in to be interviewed and fingerprinted, Vincenzo did not show up. Detective Lepine arrived at his small apartment to question the thief who let him in and slowly answered his inquiry. Meanwhile, the Mona Lisa was turned around and propped up in his closet. Lepine never took a look around and left without a bit of suspicion. Worried he would return, Peruggia left his apartment and Lisa in a case and checked into the Hotel Rive Gauche on Rue Saint Peres in Saint Germain and requested a top-floor room in case he needed to make a quick escape to the rooftops. Hiding away in room 603 for three days he awaited any news of the theft to spread through Paris.
Today it is the Hote Da Vinci and you can stay in the room where Vincenzo and his Florentine lady once stayed with your own copy of Lisa hanging on the wall.
On Wednesday, August 23 the headline was International news but not even a whisper of a suspect. Peruggia felt he was in the clear and returned to his tiny apartment at number 5 rue de l’Hopital Saint Louis where the Mona Lisa had stayed alone and would remain for the next 27 months.
Stay tuned for part 2 out Monday, January 22