How a Theft Made the Mona Lisa the Most Famous Painting in the World

On 22 August 1911 the Mona Lisa vanished from the Louvre. Picasso was questioned, a poet went to prison, and for two years the most wanted painting in the world lay in a trunk in a Paris bedroom. This is how a theft turned a painting into a legend. Chapters: 0:00 Intro 0:47 Before 1:21 The Smile 1:52 The Empty Wall 2:20 A Painting That Wasn't There 3:08 The Suspects 3:37 The Thief 4:22 Two Years 4:44 Florence 5:26 The Patriot 5:49 A Legend 6:20 The Return 6:44 Fame Hidden in Oil tells the dark, true stories hidden in the world's most famous paintings: murders, thefts, forgeries and obsessions, told with the real artworks. New stories every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe:    / @hiddeninoil   All images are public-domain artworks and archival photographs (Wikimedia Commons). Narration and music are AI-generated. Sources & image credits: • Guillaume Apollinaire (Photograph · 1914) • A Paris shop door (Eugène Atget · 1911) • A Paris newspaper kiosk (Eugène Atget · early 1900s) • Mona Lisa at the Louvre (Louis Béroud · 1911) • The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine (Correggio · c. 1526–1527 · Louvre) • The empty wall of the Salon Carré (Photograph · August 1911) • Excelsior (French newspaper · 1913) • Francis I, King of France (Jean Clouet · c. 1530 · Louvre) • The Louvre (Photograph · 19th century) • The Grande Galerie of the Louvre (Hubert Robert · 1794–1796 · Louvre) • Presumed Self-Portrait (Leonardo da Vinci · c. 1512 · Royal Library, Turin) • Paris (Hand-coloured photograph · early 1900s) • The Louvre (Photochrom · c. 1890–1900) • The Galerie d'Apollon, Louvre (Photochrom · c. 1890–1900) • Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci · c. 1503–1519 · Louvre) • Napoleon in His Study (Jacques-Louis David · 1812 · National Gallery of Art) • Vincenzo Peruggia (Police photograph) • Peruggia's police record (Paris police · 1909) • Le Petit Journal (Illustrated supplement · December 1913) • “La Joconde est retrouvée” (Le Petit Parisien · 13 December 1913) • Pablo Picasso in his studio (Photograph · 1908) • The Mona Lisa returns to the Louvre (Photograph · January 1914) • The Salon Carré, Louvre (Painting · c. 1875) • The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (Leonardo da Vinci · c. 1503–1519 · Louvre) • Saint John the Baptist (Leonardo da Vinci · c. 1513–1516 · Louvre) • How the theft was done (Reconstruction in Excelsior · 1913) • The Mona Lisa at the Uffizi (Photograph · December 1913) #arthistory #famouspaintings #darkhistory