Page 4 - mona lisat
P. 4
The theft of the Mona Lisa has been called the “art
heist of the century,” but the caper itself was fairly
rudimentary.
On the evening of Sunday, August 20, 1911, a small,
mustachioed man entered the Louvre museum in
Paris and made his way to the Salon Carré, where
the Da Vinci painting was housed alongside several
other masterworks.
Security in the museum was lax, so the man found it
easy to stow away inside a storage closet.
He remained hidden there until the following
morning when the Louvre was closed and foot
traffic was light.
At around 7:15 a.m., he emerged clad in a white
apron—the same garment worn by the museum’s
employees. After checking to see if the coast was
clear, the thief strode up to the Mona Lisa, plucked it
off the wall and carried it to a nearby service
stairwell, where he removed its wooden canvas
from a protective glass frame.
