The Theft of the World's Most Famous Picture

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1933, Page 23

The Theft of the World's Most Famous Picture

v The recent declaration by a man said to be in league with the thief who stole the famous picture "Monna Lisa" that the painting now in the Louvre is not the original has raised memories of one of the most remarkable crimes in hiss tory. The most famous picture in the world •—Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, Monna Lisa —is the subject of a startling mystery. All France mourned when the painting was stolen from the Louvre, Paris, in 1911. All Franco re- , joiced when it was reported in 1913 to have been, recovered. It has since, been stated by one of the men who took part in the theft that the picture now in the Louvre is a fake, This man is Jack Dean, form- • erly well known, to Scotland Yard. He walked into the French Embassy recently and stated that ho knows where, the real Monna Lisa is to be found. Before leaving for Paris, where he was to see M. Bollaert,. Directcur dcs Beaux Arts, Dean, told the following story to the "Sunday Express":—"l was one of the three, men who stole the Monna Lisa. I waswith a gang .in Paris which specialised in selling fake works of art. We were asked by an American millionaire if we could get him the Monna Lisa. . Tho 'boss' of the gang said he would try, intending to do the usual trick of selling the American a copy of the picture, with the 'faked' proofs that it was the original. To do this it was necessary that , the picture should appear.to be stolen from the Louvre. "We decided to steal it, lie low for a day or two while the hue and cry was on, then return it. Wo would prepare a copy which we* would sell to the American, and we would convince him that the picture wo returned to the Louvre would be a copy, not the original. An artist, well known at the time and now, I believe, dead, made the copy. "The Monna Lisa is painted on three blocks of Italian walnut about ljin thick and backed by1 a block of ebony. We used an old Italian walnut bedstead. The painting was a marvellous copy of the original. "The robbery was simple. The complete picture, wdth its frame, glass, and shadow-box, weighed about three hundredweight, and it would take three men to lift. it. So three of us hid in the easel room on a Sunday night. Thel Louvre is closed to the public on Mondays. "One of us, Vineenzo Perugia, had worked in the Louvre and knew the place thoroughly. Early on Monday morning, wearing the white blouses . ■worn -by the workmen, we went into the Salon Carre, where the Monna Lisa •was hung. "We took the picture down. Nobody : questioned us. It is an ordinary occurrence for pictures to be removed from the walls and taken to the photo- • graphers' room. '' We carried it through the Grande Galerie and the Salles dcs Sept Metres'

. to a little staircase which is used only , by the staff. "On tho stairs wo removed the ' frame, glass, backing, and shadow-box ■ and left them. One man ran down to ! unfasten, the door at the bottom of . the steps. It jammed. In his struggle the'knob came off, and there wo were —helpless, "The only thing to do was to bang on the-door to attract someone's attention. We did, and a plumber came. He opened tho door; our man thanked him and he went on! I hid the picture under my blouse, and we simply walked out with it to our fiat. "Tho theft was not discovered until Tuesdaj', and by that time the 'boss' had left for America. Five copies of the Monna Lisa had been sent there previously to w7ait for him, and these he sold secretly to five rich men. Each buyer was told that it was the genuine stolen picture, and paid accordingly. "Meanwhile, in Paris, another of the gang and I decided to do a bit of double-crossing. AYe had got the real Monna Lisa—why bother returning it? Why not sell it as a 'copy and clear out? 4 . .• - "I made inquiries and arranged things with a dealer. We were to take him the original, and he, believing it was a copy, was to pay 2000 francs (less than £.100). "But unknown to us Perugia decided to do a bit of double-crossing on his own. He knew nothing about our wonderful 'fake' picture. AYe did not trust him; we had simply used him for his knowledge of the Louvre., He only knew of one picture, and while we were taking the genuine Monna Lisa to the dealer he ran off with tho 'fake'—believing it to be genuine. "Two years later he was caught, when he tried to sell it in Florence. He was sent to prison and has since diedThe picture—the 'fake'—which was in his .possession was restored to the Louvre, and France was happy again. I and one or two others were rounded up by the police, as possible; confederates, but they got nothing ■ out of us and let us go. , "Recently I thought I would find out what had happened to the Monna Lisa w re sold, to the dealer—tho real one which he tliought was a: copy. I went to see the dealer. He remembered the picture, andtold me whom he had sold it to —a rich French collector. "I went to this collector's house, asked his permission to look at the picture, and there it was in his gallery.' Ho has Leonardo da Vinci's Monna Lisa, and thinks he has only a wonderful copy. "And here's a curious thing I've, noticed what I know other people have noticed too. In the old days there were always great crowds round the Monna Lisa. The picture seemed to have a magnetic power. People went hysterical in front of it, hundreds wrote letters to the picture. Three people committed suicide, one man shot, him-, self in front of the picture. There are no .crowds, no excitement. It's 'queer."