THE MONA LISA - LADY JUST CAN'T GET A BREAK. Attacks, quacks & more.
THE MONA LISA - LADY JUST CAN'T GET A BREAK
Sunday's gonzo gateau-attack on the celebrated Mona Lisa at the Louvre is but another in a long series of flaky, odd actions La Gioconda has had to suffer since first being displayed. Her history is chock full of attacks...secret and multiple relocations and the odd theft.
How she got here: From her 16th century arrival in France (by mule!) till now, the Mona Lisa is no stranger to the odd machinations of misguided loners, malcontents or the rapacious lusting of invaders. This recent attack is by no means the first, nor will it be the last.
Cole Porter, “Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa...Men adore you...” If Porter only knew how much...!
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is most probably the planets' most famous Renaissance painting. Or, painting, period. Despite that fame, she seldom travels and not without reason. Her few wanderings have been harrowing journeys occasioned by either the seemingly ill-informed, or the very evil of heart.
Some BG: Mona Moves to France.
In 1516 France's ruler Francois 1, a lover of the arts, graciously invited Leonardo to France and tossed in the impressive title “Premier Painter and Engineer and Architect to the King.” Leonardo, whose backer had just died, accepted and set out on the months-long journey. Among the paintings that came with him was the Mona Lisa (or 'La Joconde", the French take on "la Gioconda"). Leonardo settled in the Loire Valley where he would remain until his death in 1519.
Go West Young Woman, Go West! The Franco-Prussian War:
In 1870 France declared war on its historic nemesis Prussia, (apparently playing into Bismark's machinations of a quick, easy to win war with France to help him galvanize support for a future Germany). Things go very sideways, very quickly for France.
Fearing the soon to be invading Prussians would empty the Louvre and abscond with its treasures (as France had done when her fortunes were reversed) plans were made to protect its major artworks. One safe haven was Brest. The advantage being that city's proximity to the coast where, were the war to deteriorate even further, a quick ferry hop across the channel to England could be speedily arranged.
Thus the Mona Lisa and Veronese's The Wedding Feast at Cana were transported to Brest. (Veronese's work was no stranger to harrowing misadventures. Originally decorating a Venice church at San Giorgio Maggiore, in 1797 Napoleon’s troops plundered the church and made ready to haul off the The Wedding Feast at Cana. But, stymied by its huge dimensions, some 6.77 m × 9.94 m (22ft 2.5inches x 32ft 7 inches) the troops simply ripped it in half horizontally and rolled it up like a rug. Oy!
When the Unfathomable Happens - The Theft That Made an Icon and Set Records.
Mise-en-Scene: As far we know, the Mona Lisa's first international misadventure began on a quiet summer day in 1911 when Louvre officials discovered her AWOL. Not by her own doing, of course. It seems one Vincenzo Peruggia, (and really, you can't make this up) had worked at the Louvre, as part of team working to protect the Louvre's masterpieces. Again....Peruggia worked at the Louvre making protective glass cases for, among other famed works --the Mona Lisa.
The Theft (accounts vary) - Perrugia arrived for work one August Monday morning (or, hid overnight in a closet) when the museum was closed (and Paris, virtually empty) and, garbed in workman's attire, took down the Mona Lisa, removed the painting from its frame, wrapped it a piece of his clothing and, disappeared. (Again, details vary: Peruggia acted alone, or had two accomplices — the brothers Vincent & Michele Lancelotti, Peruggia got locked in a stairwell and was inadvertently freed by a helpful if unsuspecting worker, or he simply sauntered out the front doors.
Museum officials and the public were shocked at the previously unthinkable crime, but maybe should not have been. Earlier that year an intrepid reporter managed to slip into a sarcophagus and spend the night as a way of exposing the Louvre's anemic security measures. It seems no one took heed. Or, chose not to….
(Which brings us to....though smaller in scope, pilfering from the Louvre is/was hardly new. About a year prior to the Mona Lisa theft, a 20 kilo statue (avec pedestal) of the Egyptian god Isis disappeared from the museum. Officials assumed it was a practical joke).
The theft of the Mona Lisa was such an unprecedented act that it was a day before anyone realized the painting had been taken. Museum officials first believed the painting had been sent for photographing. A not unusual occurrence.
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But, ….Why MONA?
Perruggia's dubious rationale was that he stole the Mona Lisa to expatriate it to Italy, believing Napoleon had stolen it first during some long ago military campaign, a not too preposterous claim given the history of military plundering generally, but one seriously undermined by his previous criminal convictions. That and Napoleon having been born some 250 years after the Mona Lisa was legitimately sold to France.
When Leonardo took his last breath in 1519, happily ensconced in the Château du Clos Lucé in the sumptuous Loire Valley 'Mona' was legally purchased by the French government from one of Leonardo's assistants.
Travel Tip: Visiting the amazing, lazily picturesque Loire Valley is a genuine joy. In Amboise you can still peek down the stairs into the entrance of da Vinci's tunnel that connected his residence with that of the King's at Chateau d’Amboise. Painter and King were known to have lengthy discussions. At the base of one stairwell is a statue of da Vinci. The whole area is breathtaking and more than worth the getting to.
Back to our theft....
Meanwhile, in 1913 (two years later) an art dealer in Italy (Alfredo Geri) contacted police, saying someone named 'Leonardo' had offered to sell him the missing masterpiece. Result: It was soon back at the Louvre. Perrugia was tried in Italy and got a slap on the wrist for his efforts, serving but seven months. He then fought with the Italians in WWI, survived that, married, had a child, returned to France and died in Paris's southeastern suburbs. (Conspiracy theory fans wanting convoluted plot twits can go conspiracy spelunking in the multifaceted Karl Decker/Valfierno scenario/tale. Script writers, take note).
Three amusing codicils to end L'Affaire Perrugia. Prior to its theft, Leonardo's Mona Lisa was nowhere near as popular with people as it was after. In the two years after its disappearance, thousands swarmed the Louvre, lined up for hours and....gawked at the empty space where it used to hang. Like umpteen cliched viral scenes today, mourners left letters, did the 20th century version of memes and, in their post-theft sorrow, set new visitor records! (What Perruggia could never have imagined was the painting's subsequent skyrocketing fame that his theft helped create – a twist that made the painting very hot and thus, very hard to pawn off).
Where was the painting? For most of the time the worlds most sought after masterpiece lay concealed in a plain wooden box in Peruggia's lodgings, a sad one-room affair at 5 rue de l’Hôpital Saint-Louis in the 10th arrondissement.
In a way, Perrugia got his supposed wish. As once in Italy the Mona Lisa was a smash success, touring to rapturous acclaim (at the Uffizi and across Italy) before being repatriated....to France. And the question that needs asking: Should police have found Mona Lisa sooner? After more than 11 decades it might be unfair to speculate, but let's have some fun.
First, Peruggia had worked at the Museum (he was a house painter/glazier and was the very person, or one of, who built Mona Lisa's glass protective cover, the very one he then had to remove to steal the painting. Second, he had a police past with two prior convictions. Finally, police actually visited his apartment but failed to locate the painting. My own synthesis of events is that passing judgment is irrelevant...'tis all in the swirling, fading mists of history now. (Until Netflix asks for a script, then, the speculations will come 'a flying...).
Picasso & Apollinaire: One intriguing consequence of the Mona Lisa investigation –which, if explored then might have revealed an interesting yarn, was the arrest of Pablo Picasso and poet Guillaume Apollinaire. Both were pals with a thief (Géry Piéret) who admitted coping Louvre sculptures. The hanging question, or exposed thread, is.....why, and what were their involvements? Regardless, both were released.
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Everything Toulouse. World War I – Go West Again, Young Lady.
Within a year of the Mona Lisa's return to France however, the heir apparent to the Austrian Hungarian Empire, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, an event which triggered a cascading spiral decline of byzantine international treaties, alliances and which exploded into World War I. Louvre officials were better organized this time with initiatives well underway to safeguard the nation's treasures. In late August 1914 the German army entered France. On the last day of that same month, in an interesting play of fate or by aware museum staff, both da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Clouet's painting of Francois 1 (the same French ruler who'd invited da Vinci to France) were securely crated up and, under very vigilant eyes, began their train journey to Toulouse. There, among other priceless treasures, they would safely spend the duration of the war.
Different War, Same Players. World War II -
Mona Lisa's supposed second flight from French safety once again involves war and Germany. And once again, crafty French wiles (can we say 'Gaul'?) saved the day. On the cusp of the war, Louvre officials knew that the Mona Lisa would probably be high on the Nazi war bucket-plunder list.
To protect her, the painting was meticulously packed and crated and, along with thousands of other invaluable works, shipped out for safe storage. (Oddly, at war's end the Mona Lisa was listed as found among numerous treasures the retreating Nazis' had stashed in an Austrian salt mine in Altaussee. But interestingly only some reports listed the Mona Lisa as being recovered. The reason being, the reports claiming to have found the Mona Lisa were written by officials unable to differentiate the original from a world-class copy. It looked like the Mona Lisa. The other, correct reports, those authored by top art scholars and specialists, omitted this Mona Lisa as being found, quickly recognizing it for what it was, a near identical copy).
So, a Mona Lisa was found in Altaussee, but that was a spectacularly superb copy reportedly painted not long after da Vinci's death. There are other outstanding replicas of da Vinci's La Jaconde, and for good reason. Painting copies of masterpieces was a flourishing business during the 16th and 17th centuries. Spain's Prado museum itself possesses one of the earliest known copies, believed painted by one of da Vinci's students who used the Mona Lisa as his model.
The real/authentic/honest-to-goodness Mona Lisa never left French Terra-firma, spending the war circulating through varied châteaux in France's central and southern regions; Chambord, Louvigny, Montauban, etc., before Montal and then home to Paris. (It seems a good portion of her war years were spent some 250 miles/400k's from Paris in a sun-drenched room at château Montauban).
Were she with us now, and deigned to opine on all these events...what would La Joconde make of all this? No idea and, of course, le signore non lo dicono mai. (Ladies never tell).
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Ok…for me & Mona, that's Ciao for now....
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