The Day Nobody Noticed the Mona Lisa Was Gone | The 1911 Louvre Theft

On a Monday morning in August 1911, the Mona Lisa walked out of the Louvre, and for more than a day almost nobody noticed. This is the story of a bare patch of wall with four iron pegs, a thumbprint the police couldn't match, a poet arrested by mistake, and the quiet decorator who kept Leonardo's painting in a wooden trunk for more than two years, until he wrote a letter to an art dealer in Florence. Guillaume Apollinaire and Pablo Picasso, who are mentioned in this video, had nothing to do with the theft and were cleared. The Valfierno "mastermind" story is presented as an unconfirmed theory. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 0:50 The painting on four pegs 1:55 A Monday morning 3:05 Nobody noticed 4:03 The hunt 4:48 The poet and the painter 5:40 The empty wall 6:14 The man in the room 7:11 Leonard writes to Florence 8:14 Home again 8:48 The patriot defence 9:54 The story that won't die 10:21 Close Sources: Smithsonian Magazine (James Zug, 2011): Stolen: How the Mona Lisa became the world's most famous painting: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-cultur... Vanity Fair (2009): excerpt from The Crimes of Paris by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler: https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2009/05... BBC: Eight things we learned about the theft of the Mona Lisa: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/... NPR (2011): The theft that made the Mona Lisa a masterpiece: https://www.npr.org/2011/07/30/138800110/t... Interpol, A History of Fingerprints: https://www.crime-scene-investigator.net/P... The New York Times archive (15 Dec 1913): https://www.nytimes.com/1913/12/15/archive... Die Zeit, on Louis Béroud and the empty wall (22 August 1911) Le Journal des Arts, on the Hotel La Gioconda Wikipedia, "Vincenzo Peruggia", "Mona Lisa" and "Guillaume Apollinaire" (orientation only) Where sources disagree (how the thief got in, the length of the sentence on appeal), the video says so. Details that come from a single account are attributed on screen and in the narration. Books on this case: The Lost Mona Lisa by R. A. Scotti: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0857501143?tag... The Crimes of Paris by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0316017906?tag... The Thefts of the Mona Lisa by Noah Charney: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1538181363?tag... As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. About the visuals and voice: All scenes are AI-generated illustrations. No real people are shown; figures appear only from behind or in silhouette, and the painting itself is shown only from the back, wrapped, or as an empty frame. The narration voice and the music are synthetic. #truecrime #history #monalisa #louvre #TheLanternFiles