Picasso stole the Mona Lisa.
He was questioned and cleared. The convicted thief is Vincenzo Peruggia.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Notoriety92
Mystery15
Scale50
Evidence80
Legal impact40
Culture90
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Quick answers
When was the Mona Lisa stolen?
On 21 August 1911, from the Salon Carré of the Louvre in Paris. The empty wall was noticed on 22 August. The painting was missing for twenty-eight months.
Who took it?
Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian-born former Louvre glazier and handyman. He was arrested in Florence in December 1913 after offering the panel through dealer Alfredo Geri. A Florence court convicted him.
When did the painting return?
It was authenticated in Florence in December 1913, shown briefly in Italy and returned to the Louvre in January 1914. It has remained in the French national collection since, now in the Salle des États.
Were Picasso and Apollinaire involved?
No. Apollinaire was arrested because of an earlier, separate Louvre theft of small Iberian sculptures by an acquaintance. Picasso was questioned. Both were cleared of the Mona Lisa. The episode is a documented false lead.
Why did Peruggia say he took it?
He offered a patriotic story: that the work belonged in Italy. Leonardo had brought the portrait to France himself, and it had long been in the French royal collection. The court treated a motive speech as a motive speech, not as title to the panel.
Did the theft make the Mona Lisa famous?
It made the face universally famous. Specialists already ranked the portrait high. Two years of newspaper reproductions and a triumphant 1914 return created the modern pilgrimage picture.
The object is back and the thief was convicted. Aftermath is legend management.
English folklore still wants a larger plot than Florence recorded.
Still open
- Whether anyone else helped — Side rumours of accomplices have not produced a second public conviction that replaces Peruggia.
- How long the panel sat in Paris — Accounts place it in his lodging for much of 1911–13. Exact day-to-day custody is a biographical footnote.
- The patriotic story's afterlife — Italian papers that liked the Napoleon tale did not change legal title. The motive speech is still retold as if it were provenance.
- How much fame is 'because of 1911' — Reception historians argue the share. Specialists already cared; crowds came after the empty wall.
- False-lead ethics — The Apollinaire arrest remains a case study in celebrity investigation, not an open who question.
Myth vs record
The painting is still missing.
It returned to the Louvre in January 1914 and remains there.
Peruggia was restoring Italy's rightful property.
Leonardo had taken the portrait to France. It was a French royal then national picture. A motive speech is not a title deed.
A vast conspiracy moved the panel.
The public record is one convicted former worker and a Florence recovery. Larger plots are later invention.
Local notes
Paris as embarrassment then triumph
French papers swung from Third Republic mockery in 1911 to a 1914 homecoming. English coverage followed that arc.
Florence as recovery stage
English travel writing still mentions the 1913 Uffizi moment as a footnote on the way to the Louvre queue.
Anglophone classroom fame
English-language art surveys often date popular Mona Lisa celebrity to the theft — a reception fact, not a claim that the picture was unknown in 1910.
The 1911 Mona Lisa theft is a convicted, recovered case whose aftermath is the most famous face in a museum, not a missing panel.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.