Rare Historical Photos

<img alt="" class="aligncenter wp-image-17228 size-full" height="640" src="http://oldpicsarchive.online/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Return-of-the-Mona-Lisa-at-the-end-of-World-War-Two.jpg" width="624" /><br/><br/>The half-length portrait of Lisa Gherardini, done by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, also comes with a rich history of casualties. The most notorious one happened on 21 August 1911, when the painting was stolen.<br/><br/><img alt="" class="wp-image-17232 size-full aligncenter" height="489" src="http://oldpicsarchive.online/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/mona-lisa-0905-01-jpg.jpeg" width="360" /><br/><br/>It was the French painter, Louis Béroud who had come to The Louvre the following day and saw that the painting was strangely missing. As he needed to sketch his <em>Mona Lisa au Louvre</em>, he had asked the guards for the painting, but they supposed that it was being photographed for some advertising of the museum.<!--nextpage--><br/><br/>Louis returned to the Mona Lisa section a couple of hours later, only to find that the famous piece was still missing from the four iron pegs where it was meant to stand. Mona Lisa was indeed stolen. The Louvre closed down for a whole week, and an investigation was opened at once<br/><br/><img alt="" class="wp-image-17226 aligncenter" height="712" src="http://oldpicsarchive.online/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/The-return-of-the-Mona-Lisa-to-the-Louvre-after-the-war-Paris-1945-978x1024.jpg" width="680" /><br/><br/> <br/><br/><img alt="" class="aligncenter wp-image-17228 size-full" height="640" src="http://oldpicsarchive.online/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Return-of-the-Mona-Lisa-at-the-end-of-World-War-Two.jpg" width="624" /><!--nextpage--><br/><br/><img alt="" class="alignnone wp-image-17229" height="282" src="http://oldpicsarchive.online/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Artists-scrutinize-their-versions-of-a-Titian-portrait-left-and-the-Mona-Lisa-right-Louvre-1953-600x376.jpg" width="450" /> <img alt="" class="alignnone wp-image-17230" height="286" src="http://oldpicsarchive.online/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/mona_lisa-jpg.jpeg" width="450" /><br/><br/>Two years went by before the true culprit was discovered, an Italian petty criminal called Vincenzo Perugia who had moved to Paris in 1908 and worked at the Louvre for a time. He went to the gallery in the white smock that all the employees there wore and hid until it closed for the night when he removed the Mona Lisa from its frame. When the gallery reopened he walked unobtrusively out with the painting under his smock, attracting no attention, and took it to his lodgings in Paris.<!--nextpage--><br/><br/><img alt="" class="aligncenter wp-image-17227 size-full" height="492" src="http://oldpicsarchive.online/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Patrons-view-Leonardo-da-Vincis-Mona-Lisa-the-Louvre-1953.jpg" width="516" /><br/><br/>It was not until November 1913, calling himself Leonardo Vincenzo, that Perugia wrote to an art dealer in Florence named Alfredo Geri offering to bring the painting to Italy for a reward of 500,000 lire. He travelled to Florence by train the following month, taking the Mona Lisa in a trunk, hidden beneath a false bottom. After booking into a hotel, which subsequently shrewdly changed its name to the Hotel La Gioconda, he took the painting to Geri’s gallery. Geri persuaded him to leave it for expert examination and the police arrested Perugia later that day.<!--nextpage--><br/><br/> <br/><br/><img alt="" class="aligncenter wp-image-17233 size-full" height="407" src="http://oldpicsarchive.online/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Mona-Lisa-1963.jpg" width="500" /><br/><br/> <br/><br/>Perugia apparently believed, entirely mistakenly, that the Mona Lisa  had been stolen from Florence by Napoleon and that he deserved a reward for doing his patriotic duty and returning it to its true home in Italy. That was what he said, at least. Many Italians welcomed the masterpiece home; people flocked to see it for a time at the Uffizi Gallery, some of them weeping with joy, and Perugia served only a brief prison sentence. The great painting was duly returned to the Louvre and has hung there safely and enigmatically ever since.