Monuments Man Lt. Frank P. Albright, Polish Liaison Officer Maj. Karol Estreicher, Monuments Man Capt. Everett Parker Lesley, and Pfc. Joe D. Espinosa, guard with the 34th Field Artillery Battalion, pose with Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine upon its return to Poland in April 1946. Source: Wikipedia Commons

The Thief’s Gambit—A Patriot’s Heist or a Crook’s Crime?

Vincenzo Peruggia slipped into the Louvre just like everybody else. Except he wasn’t.

It was Friday, August 11, 1911, in the middle of a week-long heat. Only two days before, the temperature in sunbaked Paris hit 100° F. Today, as the work week came to a close, local thermometers would read 36°. That would be Celsius. In Fahrenheit, that would be 96.8°.

The Louvre wasn’t merely one of the world’s most renowned art galleries. On this hot day, it offered a bit of cool shade from the bright yellow disk burning above in the clear blue sky. That wasn’t why Vincenzo entered the building. He had worked there. His job was to build a glass case that would display a particular painting. That painting was Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

But ol’ Vinny didn’t happen into the museum for work. He calmly ventured in with all the other Continue Reading “Should Stolen Art Be Returned—Even If It Hurts the Innocent?”