Today in History

August 21, 1911
Missing Mona
Vincenzo Perugia, an employee at the Louvre Museum in Paris, makes off with Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Perhaps the most famous painting of all time, it is loved for Mona's mysterious smile, and as an example of da Vinci's expertise in chiaroscuro, the technique of seamlessly blending light and shade within a painting. Perugia gets caught in December 1913, when he tries to sell the painting to a Florentine antiques dealer. Perugia claims the theft was his attempt to restore to Italy the art treasures looted by Naploeon I.



Today's Feature History Article

The Louvre’s Priceless Masterpieces

Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo are just two of the works housed within the walls of this fortress-turned-royal palace-turned-museum




 



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