The Mona Lisa was stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian handyman who had worked at the Louvre Museum in Paris. On August 21, 1911, Peruggia took advantage of the museum being closed on a Monday and security being lax. Wearing a white smock similar to those worn by museum employees, he hid overnight in a storage closet. The next morning, he removed the painting from the wall, took it to a service stairway, removed its protective case and frame, wrapped the painting in his smock, and walked out through the same door he had entered
. Peruggia hid the Mona Lisa in his apartment in Paris for over two years. He was eventually caught in 1913 when he attempted to sell the painting to an art dealer in Florence, Italy. The dealer recognized the painting and alerted authorities, leading to Peruggia’s arrest
. Despite the initial suspicion of other figures like Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, it was Peruggia who committed the theft. He served a relatively short prison sentence of about seven months for the crime
