The Mona Lisa was a minor masterpiece — until it was stolen

Today the Mona Lisa draws thousands of daily visitors behind bulletproof glass. But in 1911 it was just one respected Leonardo among many in the Louvre — admired by critics, largely ignored by the public. That changed on the morning of August 21, 1911, when the painting simply vanished. A former Louvre worker named Vincenzo Peruggia had hidden overnight, lifted it off the wall, and walked out with it under his coat.

The theft became a global sensation. Newspapers splashed the empty wall across their front pages, crowds lined up to stare at the blank space where it had hung, and police questioned unlikely suspects — including the poet Guillaume Apollinaire and a young Pablo Picasso. For two years the painting was missing, and its absence made it a household name in a way its presence never had.

Peruggia was finally caught in 1913 when he tried to sell it to a Florence art dealer, claiming patriotic motives — he said he wanted to return it to Italy. By the time the Mona Lisa came home to the Louvre, it was no longer a quiet masterpiece but the most famous painting on Earth, its fame built as much on a crime and a media frenzy as on Leonardo's brush.