A mouse would probably give its pumpkin whiskers, but this doodle is simple enough.
Mice & Pumpkin
Category: art
House After Rain
Sunflower
Excerpts From Sketchbook #1
I’ve been doing a bit of everything.
I am participating in a challenge—100 days of drawing—and for some reason I really enjoy drawing animals.
Here is an unusual blog post—a few glimpses into my sketchbook!
Happy weekend!
The Man Who Kidnapped MONA LISA
When Mona Lisa vanished from the Louvre Museum in 1911, she became a worldwide obsession. In reality, it is just another instance of art theft. This remains a common crime, though it has never again shaken the world like it did with Leonardo’s masterpiece.
Every year, more than 50,000 art pieces are stolen around the world. The annual black market value for art theft stands between 6 and 8 billion.
After months of frantic search, the world lost hope that she would be found. Bigger tragedies took place: the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic went down on her maiden voyage, giving reporters something new to focus on.
Fifteen months after her disappearance, France formally abandoned hope of La Gioconda returning. The case was closed, and life in Paris resumed its fast pace.
Letter From ‘Leonardo’
It was Winter in the year 1913. Florence art dealer Alfredo Geri was anticipating a busy Christmas season. He had placed an ad in many Italian newspapers, offering to pay generously for fine artwork.
Responses poured in; Geri looked over them every morning, sorting out replies that sounded promising. One of them stood out from the others.
It was postmarked Poste Restante, Place de la République, Paris. It was signed “Leonardo.” Geri first suspected it to be a prank, but followed his gut and read on:
The stolen work of Leonardo da Vinci is in my possession. It seems to belong to Italy since its painter was Italian. My dream is to give back this masterpiece to the land from which he came and to the country that inspired it.
Geri took the letter to Giovanni Poggi, director of the local Uffizi Gallery. Poggi was skeptical of the letter, thinking it would be at best a well-done copy; nonetheless, he told Geri there was no loss in writing back. They told the thief that they would have to see the painting before they made an offer.
“Leonardo” wrote back quickly. He invited Geri to visit him. Poggi agreed that, when the day was set, he would go with the art dealer to examine the piece and determine whether it was a fake.
On December 10, Geri’s shop had a great deal of customers. One of them stood out from the others; he lurked in the shadows, waiting until everyone else had gone before approaching the art dealer. He introduced himself as the Leonardo from the letters and said that he had brought Mona Lisa home to Florence.
Geri and Poggi followed ‘Leonardo’ to the hotel where he was staying. It was the Albergio Tripoli-Italia, located blocks away from the house where Lisa del Giocondo had posed for the real Leonardo da Vinci in the portrait.
As they walked, Geri mentioned the payment. ‘Leonardo’ admitted that he expected the Italian government to compensate him “for the great service rendered.” He said he hadn’t taken the painting to make money. He had intended to return it to the land from which it had been stolen.
An amount was proposed. Geri would agree to pay only if Poggi could confirm the painting’s legitimacy.
They went upstairs into the room where ‘Leonardo’ had been staying. He opened his medium-sized suitcase, emptied it of its meager contents, and opened a false bottom. Inside waited Mona Lisa, wrapped in silk and marvelously preserved. Poggi studied the painting and confirmed that this was Louvre property.
Geri and Poggi contained their excitement in front of the thief. They fled the hotel with the painting and called the police. ‘Leonardo’ was napping when Florence officers came to take him.
He did not struggle, convinced that the government would recognize him as a hero.
Knight In Shining Armor
‘Leonardo’ cooperated with the police. He identified himself as thirty-two year old Vincenzo Peruggia. He lived in Paris, where he worked painting houses. He had worked at the Louvre as a glazier for two years.
Peruggia described himself as a patriot. He had stolen the Mona Lisa to avenge all the art pieces that had been taken from Italy by Napoleon during his painting plunder. Peruggia did not seem to know that, while Napoleon did steal many pieces of art, Mona Lisa was not one of them. She had been in France delighting kings and aristocrats long before Napoleon was born.
It was arranged that Mona Lisa would be given to the French ambassador. France allowed her to stay in Italy for two weeks. During this visit, thousands of Italians came on pilgrimage to see Leonardo’s most famous painting. Peruggia’s prediction that he would be a hero wasn’t far off: many Italians believed that he had done a great service to their country.
Conquering Hero?
Vincenzo Peruggia was on the list of Louvre workers that French police had investigated when Mona Lisa vanished. How come he was not a suspect from the beginning?
Peruggia had been summoned at the beginning for questioning but never appeared. A detective went to his apartment, searched it, and asked questions. Peruggia said he had been at work the morning when Mona Lisa vanished; if they had checked his alibi, they would learn that he arrived several hours late.
What about fingerprinting? There had been a flaw in Alphonse Bertillon’s profiling. He only classified his criminal records with right thumbprints, and the print on Mona Lisa’s frame had been a left thumbprint. Peruggia was therefore never linked to it.
Peruggia was not brought to trial until June 4, 1914. France did not press for harsh treatment; Italy was not keen to punish the man who had brought Mona Lisa for a brief visit home. He managed to rouse the sympathy of his compatriots, which must have had an influence on his absurdly short prison sentence.
He was given a sentence of one year and fifteen days. On July 19, it was reduced to seven months and nine days. When this brief punishment ended, he went on to start a paint shop.
I have tried to cover the disappearance of Mona Lisa and do justice to the story over the month of August. It’s impossible to give all of the details in a series of little blog posts. If you want to know more about this insane event in history, I encourage you to read Vanished Smile by R.A. Scotti.
Everything about Mona Lisa has a story behind it. I will continue to read about her because few paintings have had such long, unique histories. I am wrapping up my August Mona Lisa Month with this post, but I am not done getting to know the Queen of the Louvre.
I hope my articles have been helpful to you; they were great fun to write!
Pablo Picasso on Trial
When I started my series of posts on the Mona Lisa, I wanted to tell the story of her disappearance in a manner that did it justice. I was captivated by Vanished Smile, a book that makes the painting come to life (more so than she reportedly does!)
In this post I will sum up for you an interesting chapter of the investigation which I learned of from R. A. Scotti. I have left out plenty of details; to enjoy the full scope of the madness, you’ll have to read the book.
History is stranger than fiction. In 1911 France’s most famous lady was stolen–practically from under the noses of guards. The world was left reeling from the brashness of this theft.
It was a time of change in the art world. Pablo Picasso had begun championing a new form of art, modern and daring, a far cry from the styles of the old masters. His style brought together a group of enthusiasts determined to challenge tradition and redefine beauty.
Many members of Picasso’s gang were known for being loud and sometimes rude. They were labeled romantic renegades by those who admired them, ne’er-do-wells by disapprovers. It wasn’t until La Gioconda’s disappearance that something happened to pull them into legal problems.
During this interlude in the search for da Vinci’s painting, the police no longer saw these people as artists making a statement. Instead the police called them “foreign thieves and swindlers who have come to France to plunder its treasure.”
With dozens of theories but no clues about the painting’s whereabouts, Picasso’s gang gave police something to focus on. It all started with some badly timed letters, an apparent joke gone wrong.
The Statue
Following Mona Lisa‘s disappearance, an explosion of fake copies and ‘sightings’ sprang up worldwide. Louvre experts examined the false paintings turned in by people hoping for a reward. They did not fall for the scams, but were no closer to an answer.
On August 29, the day the Museum opened again, a strange correspondent wrote to the editors of the Paris-Journal. This newspaper had promised a reward as well as anonymity to thief if they should return La Gioconda.
His first letter did not speak of La Gioconda, but it didn’t arrive alone. With it was a small statue the writer claimed was from the Louvre. He wrote about a series of thefts, his story raising as many questions as it answered.
Most of all, it rubbed salt into the wound of the Museum’s lax security.
It was in March, 1907, that I entered the Louvre for the first time—a young man with time to kill and no money to spend … I suddenly realized how easy it would be to … take away almost any object of moderate size.
The mysterious author explained how he had chosen the head of a woman, concealed it under his vest, and walked out. He sold the statue to an unnamed painter-friend for fifty francs ($200.)
The very next day I took a man’s head with enormous ears. … And three days later, a plaster fragment covered in hieroglyphs. A friend gave me twenty francs for this last. … Now one of my colleagues has spoiled all of my plans for a collection by making this hullabaloo in the painting department!
The next day, August 30, the paper reported a second letter from the mysterious writer.
… You will allow me a few words of protest against certain terms of abuse leveled at me in your issue of yesterday … A professional thief, lacking all moral sense, would remain unaffected by them; but I am not without sensitivity…
The letter was signed Baron Ignace d’Ormesan.
An examination by Louvre curators confirmed that the statue was property of the museum. It meant that the thief’s story was true: at least one statue had been stolen. The next day, ‘Baron d’Ormesan’ wrote another letter in the same mocking tone:
I do not want to leave France without once again sending you my thanks for the chivalrous manner in which you handled the little matter…
Then he finished:
I can only urge the person at present holding Vinci’s masterpiece to place himself entirely in your hands. He has a colleague’s word for it that your good faith is above all suspicion.
The morning paper had scarcely gone out before Prefect Lépine identified the so-called Baron d’Ormesan. It was a familiar name to Parisian literati belonging to a fictional character from L’Hérésiarque et cie, a collection of stories written by the poet Guillaume Apollinaire.
Apollinaire was a part of Picasso’s crowd. Police were soon knocking at the poet’s door.
Questions
Three days after Mona Lisa’s disappearance, Apollinaire had written in the paper L’Intrasigeant:
The pictures, even the smallest, are not padlocked on the walls, as they are in most museums abroad. Furthermore, it is a fact that the guards have never been drilled in how to rescue pictures in case of fire. The situation is one of carelessness, negligence, indifference.
Loosely known as la bande de Picasso, the group was famous for more than their loud opinions. They were outlaws of traditional art, set on breaking the rules to free art from art history.
Mona Lisa was the archetype of the dead masterpieces they rejected. If Picasso’s group had indeed taken her, no one would have been surprised. Prefect Lépine was convinced that la bande de Picasso was involved.
Apollinaire’s letters as the Baron placed him in the middle of the investigation–and in deep trouble.
Guillaume Apollinaire was transported in handcuffs to the Palais de Justice, where for hours he refused to provide any information. Only at the point of arrest did he confess that he was not the statue thief, but knew who was. He named Honoré Joseph Géry Pieret, a Belgian who had been living in his apartment as a secretary.
He admitted to knowing about Géry’s theft. He confessed to having bought Géry a train ticket to Marseilles on August 21, urging him to leave the country. Apollinaire thought that he would be released after giving the information.
Instead he was locked in a cell at Le Santé prison for being an accomplice.
La bande de Picasso was a guilty party to Prefect Lépine. He was confident that they were the gang of thieves he was after—and that they would be able to tell him Mona Lisa’s whereabouts.
It wasn’t long before he’d arrested the face of the movement, Picasso himself.
Betrayal
Guillaume Apollinaire and Pablo Picasso, so often seen together as leaders of a band of rebels, faced one another in the courtroom. Their nerves caused them to trip on words, contradicting themselves and one another.
When asked about his friendship with Apollinaire, Picasso said, “I have never seen him before.”
Picasso confessed to having bought the stolen statues. He was released on his own recognizance and warned not to leave Paris. Apollinaire was returned to the Santé prison, but there was not enough evidence to link him to the theft of Mona Lisa. He was released on September 13.
The theft of Mona Lisa had found a likely culprit in la bande de Picasso, but it was a dead end. Géry’s theft of the statues was possible because of the poor security which enabled the theft of la Gioconda.
Unfortunately for detectives, this only proved that theft was easy at the Louvre, not that Picasso’s band had indeed taken the painting. The questions remained: who was the thief, and where was the painting? No closer to an answer, police began to lose spirit.
For years Picasso never spoke of the Mona Lisa ordeal. He continued being his larger-than-life self, leading the modern art movement with his bold colors and shapes.
It was 1959 when at last he mentioned Apollinaire during an interview:
When the judge asked me, ‘Do you know this gentleman?’ I was suddenly terribly frightened and without knowing what I was saying, I answered, ‘I have never seen this man.’ I saw Guillaume’s expression change. The blood ebbed from his face. I am still ashamed.
I wish I had read Vanished Smile before I went to the Louvre to see Mona Lisa. R. A. Scotti tells the story of her disappearance with more grace than I’ve been able to manage. If you like history, art, and true stories that sound insane, I encourage you to grab a copy and dig in.
Next week I’ll wrap up my Mona Lisa segment with her return to the Louvre–and the peculiar circumstances surrounding that. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this story as much as I did!
Mona Lisa: The Queen of the Louvre
Throughout my years of blogging I’ve been faithful to the topic of literature. As a storyteller, it seemed like the most natural thing: reading is my vocation. Almost a decade later, I’m itching to write about more.
My interests as I’ve grown and learned have developed considerably. Having read The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall, I’ve come to understand that story isn’t limited to words on a page.
Story is a magic that’s not limited to paper and ink. In the beginning, sagas were spoken by bards. Before common people could read, they learned their history through sketches and paintings. Story can also be sung or played on musical instruments.
Lost in the rabbit hole of the Internet, a person can live their lifetime without ever really looking at a painting. Masters such as Van Gogh or Beethoven are more than online trends. I want to talk about the artists whose work helped form society.
Most Famous Smile
We’re going to begin by discussing the most famous painting in the world.
Is there a better way in which to introduce fine art? Mona Lisa has made it to meme fame; her face is on trendy t-shirts and bags. It’s tragic that people know what she looks like but few know who she is.
Mona Lisa, known in Italian as La Gioconda, has had an exciting life despite being trapped on canvas. She has been speculated over, stolen, and pulled into one of the wildest conspiracy theories.
At this time, she lives in the historic museum of the Louvre. So many tourists go there to visit La Gioconda (including myself!) that she has been given a room of her own. It’s bulletproof and its temperature is strictly controlled to protect her.
Who Is Mona Lisa?
Completed by the master Leonardo da Vinci in 1517, La Gioconda is categorized as a half-length painting. This is a term which refers to a portrait that only shows the subject’s upper half and hands.
Mona Lisa was commissioned by a wealthy silk merchant named Francesco del Giocondo. It was a portrait of his wife, Lisa, and took sixteen years for Leonardo to complete. It’s thought to have been painted in celebration of the birth of their second son.
Before Lisa del Giocondo was identified as the model, this painting presented a staggering puzzle. Alternate models were proposed such as Isabella of Aragon, the Duchess of Francavilla, and Renaissance art patron Isabella d’Este.
Some insist that Leonardo used himself as the model, but 21st century art historians refute this.
What’s It Like At Her House?
The Louvre had a history before it became a tourist hot spot. It was a fortress during the turbulent Middle Ages, a palace during the time of the monarchy, and Napoleon’s showcase for stolen art during the First Empire.
I visited the Louvre with my mom and brother. Because it was designed as a fortress, it’s unlike other museums I’ve seen with their straightforward floor plans. The Louvre is enormous; we didn’t have time to see everything.
I became pleasantly lost in the realm of the marble statues. It reminded me of the White Witch’s court in Narnia. Later I learned that the Louvre houses the Nike of Samothrace. I can’t believe I missed it, and hope to visit again for a look.
An Audience With La Gioconda
Mona Lisa is the Queen of the Louvre. If you wish to visit her, it means standing in line for at least half an hour. You ascend three elevators crowded with tourists who want to pay homage.
There is a sign by the entrance to her chamber. It says to make haste because of the many people who want to meet her.
When you enter the chamber, there’s a moment in which you think Is she really here? The Mona Lisa is depicted as enormous in cartoons and memes, but she’s actually the smallest painting in the vicinity.
La Gioconda measures 30 by 20 inches. The crowd is so packed that you must crane your neck to glimpse that famous smile. This is proof that you do not need to be the largest or most eye-catching to be powerful.
People then rush in to get their pictures. Drawing near to the legendary painting, you feel goosebumps. Regardless of her size, this is her–this is the lady everyone knows about to some degree, the goddess of Renaissance art.
Homage
In the City of Light you cannot delude yourself into believing story is limited to pages in books.
Stories pack the streets of Paris, waiting on the famous bridges and near bookselling bouquinistes. They linger near the ruins of Notre Dame Cathedral, where you can imagine centuries of people stopping there to pray. They are sprawled on the sidewalks which, during the Revolution, glistened with pools of blood.
In our next tribute to La Gioconda, we’ll learn about the artist–just a little, because there’s not enough room in a blog post to depict Leonardo da Vinci in a way that’ll do him justice. I’ll enjoy my research; I hope you’ll enjoy reading it.
Mariella Hunt 