September 07, 2009
Mona Lisa discovered stolen (1911)
Agreat art theft would land the poet who coined the word surrealism into prison on this day and force a future famous painter to skulk about the Seine attempting to sink stolen artifacts.The place: The Louvre. The year: 1911. A painter named Louis Béroud came in with a model, his easel and his paints. There had been a great controversy brewing over the previous weeks after the Louvre's curator, Théophile Homolle, had ordered the installation of panes of glass in front of a number of works, including the Mona Lisa. The reflections made it difficult to see the works, leading to jokes that the Louvre was covering up a theft by putting a copy behind the glass. Béroud had decided to paint a joke by painting his model fixing her hair in the reflection in front of the Mona Lisa.
This is what he found when he arrived:
Four iron pegs, the shelf on which the painting's frame rested, and a lighter patch of wall, Mona Lisa-sized. He called over a guard, who gave a Gallic shrug. Perhaps it had been taken away to be photographed. Be patient. It will be returned and you may have your painting.
Three hours later, an irritated Béroud asked again. This time, they checked with the photographers. No Mona Lisa. The guards hastily looked through the museum. Nothing. The police were called in. They shut down the Louvre for a week and searched every one of its 225 rooms and five miles of corridors. The painting's gilt frame was found in a staircase and a wrenched off door handle outside showed how the thief gave entrance. The police re-enacted the theft using a copy of the painting, and learned that unhooking the painting could be done in five minutes by someone who didn't know how, but in only six seconds by the museum's staff.
Theories behind the theft abounded. The Germans did it, to embarrass the French. The French secret service did it, to blame the Germans. It was a maniac enamored with Mona Lisa's smile. It was one of the Louvre's guards, or someone wanting to ransom the painting.
A week later, another story about the museum made headlines. The newspaper had received a letter bragging that the Mona Lisa wasn't the only object stolen from the museum. The letter-writer had taken two primitive sculptures back in 1907 and sold them. In fact, only a few months before the Mona Lisa theft, he had returned to the museum and stolen a Phoenician piece. As proof, he sold the item to the newspaper, who turned it over to the police.
At this point, let's introduce Guillaume Apollinaire, poet, art critic, editor and unintended recipient of stolen goods. He had befriended the letter-writer, Géry Piéret, a starving artist, and for awhile had employed the young man as his secretary. He had known about the earlier thefts, and when Piéret had arrived at his flat with the Phonician piece, had placed the item on his mantle piece.
When the Mona Lisa was stolen, Apollinaire panicked. Sure that Piéret had made off with the Da Vinci painting as well, he gave the piece back, along with all the francs he had, and told Piéret that a long vacation outside the reach of the French police would be an excellent idea.
This Piéret did, but not before he sold the piece to the newspaper and wrote the letter bragging about his later theft. But he did something else that dragged Apollinaire into the mess. According to "Rouges in the Gallery," by Hugh McLeave:
His fears heightened when Piéret wrote from Frankfurt confessing to the theft of the statuettes and trying to exonerate Apollinaire, who had asked him to leave when he discovered the crime. "My dear friend," he quoted Apollinaire as saying, "You'd better go immediately. I don't share your opinions and I'm sorry I invited you to stay with me now that I believe in your crime."Somehow, the police got wind of this letter. With Piéret out of the country, they began to focus on Apollinaire, who panicked. He knew exactly who Piéret sold those two earlier pieces to, an artist with promise named Picasso who had been inspired by those sculptures to use them in "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon."
Picasso's mistress at the time, Fernande Olivier, wrote about Apollinaire's visit to the studio:
"They owe it to me that they didn't lose their heads completely. They made up their minds to stay in Paris and immediately get rid of the incriminating objects. But how? Finally, after a gobbled meal and kicking their heels the whole evening they decided to go out after dark and throw a suitcase containing the sculptures into the Seine.Soon after, Apollinaire was arrested. At the Palais de Justice, he endured a day of questioning before he broke down, confessed his limited involvement in the thefts, and fingered Picasso. He denied knowing anything about the Mona Lisa theft, but the poet was charged with complicity to steal and sent to the notorious Santé prison.
Towards midnight, they set out on foot carying the suicase, and returned at two o'clock, exhausted, played out. They brought back the suitcase and its contents. They had wandered up and down, never finding the right moment and not daring to get rid of their package. They thought they were being followed and their imagination had invented a thousand things, each one more fantastic than the last.
Later, Guillaime wrote:
Before entering my cellGuillaime was in prison for five days before police concluded that he really didn't have anything to do with the theft, and he was released. Picasso was questioned, but not arrested.
They made me strip to the skin
I hear a sinister wail
Guillaume what have you become
Two years would pass before the Mona Lisa would be recovered. A former Louvre worker, an Italian named Vincenzo Peruggia, was arrested in Italy after trying to sell the work to an art dealer. In the eyes of Italians, the theft made him a patriot, and the Mona Lisa was exhibited throughout the country before it was returned to the Louvre, where it is exhibited today, behind reinforced glass, with a bored guard next to it.
Born: Emily Chubbock Judson, poet, author, Eaton, N.Y. 1817; George Herriman, cartoonist, New Orleans, 1881; Dorothy Parker, novelist, short-story writer, critic, wit, West End, N.J., 1893; Ray Bradbury, fantasy novelist, short-story writer, Waukegan, Ill., 1920; E(dna) Annie Proulx, novelist, Norwich, Conn., 1935.
Died: Henry Bohn, publisher, bookseller, bibliographer, Twickenham, London, 1884; Kate Chopin, novelist, short-story writer, St. Louis, 1904; Roger Martin du Gard, playwright, Bellême, France. 1958; Jacob Bronowski, scientist, author, East Hampton, N.Y., 1974; James T. Farrell, novelist, short-story writer, social critic, New York City, 1979.
Quote for the Day: "[Writing routine] is not a pattern, it's not a discipline, it's a madness. Every morning I wake up at seven o'clock and my subconscious says, Well, I'll tell you what you're going to do today, Ray. You're not in charge, I am. That part of me that's the writer dictates the day. I have no control over it. Every day is wonderful. It may be a poem one morning, it may be a short story, it could be part of a novel, a one-act play. Whatever IT wants, not what I want. It's fun. I can hardly wait to see what I'm going to do next." — Ray Bradbury, who was born today in 1920
Also from the Reader's Almanac:
- Sailing along the Spoon River (1915)
- Somerset Maugham's wedding nightmare (1917)
- Writers colonies of the dead
- The mortification of Martin Amis (1995)
- A valentine from Olivia Goldsmith (1996)
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