A handyman walked out of the Louvre with the most famous painting on Earth tucked under his smock — and the theft is the reason anyone cares about it today.
On the morning of August 21, 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian handyman who had briefly worked at the Louvre installing protective glass, simply lifted the Mona Lisa off four iron pegs in the Salon Carré, stripped away its frame and case on a service staircase, and walked out the door.
The theft went unnoticed for over 24 hours. It was only discovered the next day when a painter arrived to copy the work and found a blank space on the wall.
Paris police mounted a massive investigation involving more than 60 officers. In the frenzy of suspicion, both Pablo Picasso and poet Guillaume Apollinaire were arrested and questioned before being cleared.
Peruggia hid the painting in his small Paris apartment for two years, reportedly keeping it in a trunk with a false bottom, just blocks from where police were searching.
In December 1913, Peruggia finally made his move, contacting Florence art dealer Alfredo Geri under the alias 'Leonardo V.' and offering to sell the painting for a reward, claiming he wanted to return it to its 'homeland' of Italy.
Geri and Uffizi Gallery director Giovanni Poggi verified the painting's authenticity, then alerted police, who arrested Peruggia in his hotel room.
Peruggia was convicted but served only seven months of a roughly one-year sentence, partly due to a psychiatric assessment questioning his mental state, and partly because many Italians viewed him as a patriot rather than a criminal.
Before the theft, the Mona Lisa was a respected but not especially famous painting. The worldwide media frenzy over its disappearance and recovery transformed it into the most recognizable artwork in history.
Peruggia went on to serve in World War I, was captured by Austria-Hungary, and eventually returned to France, where he lived quietly as a painter-decorator under his real name until his death in 1925.