FAMOUS PICTURE SENSATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20593, 17 December 1928, Page 16

FAMOUS PICTURE SENSATION

FEARS THAT MONA USA IS A FAKE. MYSTERY OF A TEST. Once again the question is being hotly debated whether the Mona' Lisa, th<* world-famous picture in the Louvre, is genuine, or whether 17 years ago—when it was stolen under sensational circum-stances-a clever copy was substituted. Public interest in the mystery has been renewed by the action of the l/ouvrs l in engaging Professor Fernan Cellerier, director of one of the principal State laboratories, to examine the famous painting by the X-ray, ultra-violet rav, and other methods.

His examination has now been complcted, but the result remains a secret. To-day the whole art world of Paris is asking is the Mona Lisa’s reputation really a bit shady? An Italian tramp artist named Vincenzo Perugia originally caused all the controversy about the Mona Lisa’s authenticity by walking into the Louvre on Monday morning, August 21, 1911, and slitting the painting out of its gilded frame. THIEF’S CONFESSION.

. pushed the priceless canvas down into the folds of his umbrella, calmly strolled out, and disappeared. The painting had been given up as los. when Perugia waked Into an antique shop in Florence on December 12, 1013, and offered to sell it. He was immediately arrested, and he confessed to the theft. a

When, a month later, the paint iii" was sent back to Paris many distinguished art exports declared positively that it was a copy. But the Louvre authorities laughed at the sceptics, and held a secret session, where they satisfied themselves—or pretended to—that they had got their masterpiece hack again. Microphotographs of the Mona Lisa plainly showed all the cracks made in the pigment by age. The fact that the painting returned from Italy had the same prints ns those shown in the microphotographs was considered conclusive evidence of identification. Since then this system of identification lias been discovered to bo almost worthless, because the cracks can be faked, and so after 14 years the question lias come up again whether the real Mona Lisa waa returned after all,