On 21 August 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre.The theft was not discovered until the next day, when painter Louis Béroud walked into the museum and went to the Salon Carré where the painting had been on display for five years; only to find four iron pegs on the wall. Béroud contacted the head of the guards, who thought the painting was being photographed for promotional purposes. A few hours later, Béroud checked back with the Section Chief of the Louvre who confirmed that the Mona Lisa was not with the photographers. The Louvre was closed for an entire week during the investigation.
French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who had once called for the Louvre to be "burnt down", came under suspicion and was arrested and imprisoned. Apollinaire implicated his friend Pablo Picasso, who was brought in for questioning. Both were later exonerated. Two years later the thief revealed himself. Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia had stolen the Mona Lisa by entering the building during regular hours, hiding in a broom closet, and walking out with it hidden under his coat after the museum had closed. Peruggia was an Italian patriot who believed da Vinci's painting should have been returned for display in an Italian museum.
Peruggia may have been motivated by an associate whose copies of the original would significantly rise in value after the painting's theft. A later account suggested Eduardo de Valfierno had been the mastermind of the theft and had commissioned forger Yves Chaudron to create six copies of the painting to sell in the U.S. while the location of the original was unclear. However, the original painting remained in Europe.
After having kept the Mona Lisa in his apartment for two years, Peruggia grew impatient and was caught when he attempted to sell it to directors of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It was exhibited in the Uffizi Gallery for over two weeks and returned to the Louvre on 4 January 1914. Peruggia served six months in prison for the crime and was hailed for his patriotism in Italy. Before its theft, the Mona Lisa was not widely known outside the art world. It was not until the 1860s that some critics, a thin slice of the French intelligentsia, began to hail it as a masterwork of Renaissance painting.
In 1956, part of the painting was damaged when a vandal threw acid at it. On 30 December of that year, a rock was thrown at the painting, dislodging a speck of pigment near the left elbow, later restored.
The use of bulletproof glass has shielded the Mona Lisa from subsequent attacks. In April 1974, a woman, upset by the museum's policy for disabled people, sprayed red paint at it while it was being displayed at the Tokyo National Museum. On 2 August 2009, a Russian woman, distraught over being denied French citizenship, threw a ceramic teacup purchased at the Louvre; the vessel shattered against the glass enclosure. In both cases, the painting was undamaged.
Pt. 2
“The builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.”
In spite of the interesting and surprising history of the Mona Lisa, the life and person of Leonardo Da Vinci will always be acclaimed and revered more than his works or the subjects of his works.
The subject of this painting is believed to be Lisa Gherardini. She was the wife of a wealthy silk merchant from Florence named Francesco del Giocondo. Historians believe Francesco commissioned the painting for their new home to celebrate the birth of their second son, Andrea.
And though her features adorn a painting which has been conservatively valued at $700,000,000, (700 Million Dollars) her surname and history have been all but forgotten; except by a comparatively few museum curators. And while the details surrounding the theft and vandalism perpetrated on the painting are interesting, such information is soon lost to the fading print of yesterday’s newspaper.
“The builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.”
I continue to come back to that verse from the New Testament Book of Hebrews.
He who creates merits much greater honor than the object which he or she chooses to create. What a relevant and modern concept, and yet it is as old as time itself.
My own father was a master landscape artist. Several of his paintings grace the walls of my home. And while Henry McDonald’s artistic fame will never be mentioned in the same breath as Leonardo Da Vinci, he was, as I have inferred, an accomplished painter.
When I gaze at his paintings it is not the colorful inanimate mural which catches my eye. It is the skill, diligence and time he expended on the object. It is the caricature he first figmented in his mind prior to translating it to the blank canvass. It is the countenance and character of the man, himself; someone whom I knew and loved and who lived and breathed and impacted the lives whom God graced to set in his pathway.
No doubt, it was equally true of the contemporaries of Leonardo, as they reflected on the life and works of their late master. And no doubt his gift, and the gifts of those who have succeeded him, no matter the genre, tangible, relational or spiritual, will keep on giving long after our own contemporaries have ceased to live and move and breathe on the earth.
“The builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.”
By
William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 53. Copyright pending
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