The Mona Lisa Vanishes: A Legendary Painter, a Shocking Heist, and the Birth of a Global Celebrity

Newspapers and other technologies are one critical reason that the Mona Lisa rose to fame and prominence, but Day also tracks the ways people’s interactions with, interpretations of, and stories about the Mona Lisa and those associated with its theft fed into its fame. Part of why the Mona Lisa has become so enduringly fascinating, Day suggests, is because of the vast array of stories she generated. Narrative has the power to hold people’s attention, whether or not those narratives are true.

A negative effect of the power of narrative is found in the botched investigation. Both the investigators and the public seized on stories that had no basis in fact. The investigators had a story in their heads about who would steal art and why, and they pursued those stories rather than the actual thief, who was within their grasp all along. Through the example of Arsène Lupin, a fictional character, Day shows how “fact and fiction became blurred” (77). Lupin became the model for the kind of criminal who would perpetrate on art theft, a “Consummate Professional” (110), though nothing about his story resonated with the life of the man who committed the crime. That model then briefly convinced the public that the thief could be Adam Worth, a man who was not alive at the time of the theft. The notion of a professional thief lingered, however, and invited the possibility that the thief could be contracted by a “Rich American” (128).

The influence eventually went the other way as well. The Mona Lisa theft became woven into fictional stories. Franz Kafka and Max Brod made a film about the theft, parodying the chaos and spectacle around its investigation. Though it had not yet been found, the film portrayed the investigators and museum as so hopelessly blundering that they did not notice the portrait had been returned. By the time of the first James Bond film in 1961, the Mona Lisa had long since been found, but it appears in the lair of the film’s evil villain, Dr. No.

Narrative also played into the defense of Vincenzo Perugia. He portrayed himself as yet another stock character, that of the “Patriotic Italian” (216) who had not stolen the Mona Lisa but repatriated it. It did not matter that he had committed other robberies or that he had attempted to sell the painting while still in France. The idea of the story resonated so deeply with the Italian public that he became “a luminary on the level of the Mona Lisa itself” (220).

While Day approaches the many stories with a sense of fun, a serious message for young readers underlies them: Enjoy stories, but also be aware of their power, and think critically about who is telling them and why, and what they may be leaving out.

Day also provides an antidote to the power of narratives: maintaining a sense of wonder and curiosity. Day encourages readers to ask questions and explore many possible angles. He does not criticize stories; rather he encourages remembering that those stories are sometimes enjoyable fictions and to keep an open mind.

The many stories he tells across the books exemplify both uncritical acceptance of narrative and approaching knowledge with wonder. The investigators typify the former, Leonardo and Picasso the latter. The absence of wonder enabled Perugia to walk out of the Louvre with the painting even though a plumber could have questioned him. It also enabled the theft to go unnoticed. Just after Perugia slipped into the stairwell, the head of the museum’s maintenance crew strolled through the gallery and noticed the missing painting but did not question why it was gone. The same is true of a guard the following day. Lépine and Bertillon could have fingerprinted the workers who passed through the museum and put those prints alongside the one they found on the glass, but they were so deeply engaged with spinning stories that they failed to make the best use of the tools at their disposal.

By contrast, Day records that Leonardo has been “called the most relentlessly curious man in history” (51). For Leonardo, curiosity was what engaged and drove him. He wanted to know everything worth knowing, to explore every field of study and how they all intersected, to develop himself and his talents to the fullest extent possible, and he was willing to relinquish the trappings of success to do that. Toward the end of his life, Leonardo’s passion for knowledge was appreciated deeply by the French king Frances I, who invited him to his court with only one obligation: “[T]o talk to Francis about whatever Francis wants to talk about” (195).

Wonder and curiosity also enable Picasso to transcend the racist interpretations of African art that existed in his time. When he saw the masks, he understood their meaning, and they taught him to understand his purpose as a painter. Wonder, Day emphasizes from beginning to end, can change the way people experience the world and help keep them from falling into assumptions and narratives that could be potentially misleading or damaging.