DavidP on BudgetPixel

**The 1911 Mona Lisa Theft** - The Great Heist - 54/69 --- True story, even if the image is not quite right :grin In August 1911, the Louvre’s majestic Grand Galerie fell silent, closing for routine Tuesday maintenance. Among the staff walked Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian handyman wearing a standard white workman’s smock. He was not there to clean; he was there to take back what he believed belonged to Italy. Waiting until a storeroom was deserted, Peruggia unhooked Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa from the wall. In a nearby staircase, he swiftly wrenched the masterpiece from its heavy gold frame and glass case. Wrapping his smock around the wooden panel, he tucked it under his arm and walked straight out the front door into the bustling Parisian morning. The empty space on the velvet wall went unnoticed for over twenty-four hours. For two years, the world’s most famous smile remained hidden in a false-bottom trunk in Peruggia’s cramped Paris apartment. The heist transformed the painting from an artwork into a global sensation. The mystery finally ended in 1913, when Peruggia attempted to sell the masterpiece to an art dealer in Florence. He was promptly arrested, the painting was returned, and the handyman became an overnight legend.

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