The making of an icon:

the kidnapping of the Mona Lisa

In the Louvre visitor guides from around 1900, there was no particular mention of the Mona Lisa. It is one painting among many beautiful works in the museum, but its reputation is relatively low.

Today, on the other hand, she is the absolute and undisputed icon of painting, but this special status is, after all, recent.

If the Mona Lisa became THE Mona Lisa, it is also and partly because it was at the heart of a media storm when it was stolen in 1911 and this is the story that the Vistemboire des Panoramas has chosen to tell you.

As the story of this incredible affair unfolds, we meet Prefect Lépine, anthropologist Bertillon, archaeologist Homolle, and some art giants, still little-known but already turbulent: Apollinaire, Dorgelès, Picasso...

We also see the beginning of advertising, the role of the media, the mania for plots, international tensions and the astonishing fate of the thief, Vincenzo Peruggia who, after leaving prison, returned to Paris to open a paint shop!

Visitor's Guide to the Mona Lisa Expo.jpg

The mise en abyme

When I took this picture, I thought I was taking a picture of a person taking a picture of the picture of the absence of a picture.

The media storm

The very evening of the Mona Lisa's disappearance, the press began to headline this theft, or rather "this abduction", "this kidnapping", "this abduction" as they said at the time to refer to "the missing person".

The highlight of the exhibition

When it was announced that an important painting had disappeared from the Louvre, Parisians flocked to see "the place where the painting had hung", which interested them much more than the other paintings in the Louvre, which, fortunately, had not all been stolen!

The poet, the painter and the renegade

Because he had been in contact with a fence nicknamed Baron d'Ormesan, Apollinaire was arrested for the theft of the Mona Lisa. Picasso, who had knowingly purchased statuettes stolen from the Louvre, disowned his friend before the investigating judge.

The inspired collector

While all of Europe is drowning in fake Mona Lisas, no one is paying attention to the pranksters who claim to have the real one. Fortunately, Alfredo Geri thinks it's always worth a try!

Crime doesn't pay... at least not much

The thief was arrested and tried in Italy in April 1914, sentenced to 10 months in prison, before being released after just three months. Meanwhile, the First World War had broken out, and the thief of the Mona Lisa was a rather trivial subject. Returning to Paris in 1918, he opened a shop selling painters' supplies...

Request for a reservation for a private tour

If you would like to have a private tour of the exhibition "1911: The Abduction of the Mona Lisa" or link it to a particular event, please contact us: