The Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa
HISTORY This Week
The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
4.5 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 16 August 2021
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
August 21, 1911. On a Monday morning, a department store employee on a Paris street sees a man hurrying by. He carries a white-wrapped package and, as the employee watches, he throws something small and shiny over his shoulder...it’s a doorknob. Then the man disappears into the streets of Paris. That store employee has just witnessed a small part of what will soon become the world’s most famous crime. In that white-wrapped package was...the Mona Lisa. Why has the Mona Lisa enchanted so many people since the 1500s? And how did a struggling Italian handyman manage to steal it?
Thank you to our guests, Martin Kemp, author of Mona Lisa. The People and the Painting, and Dr. Noah Charney, founder of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The History Channel, original podcast. |
| 0:05.0 | History this week, August 21st, 1911. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm Sally Helm. |
| 0:13.0 | You see all kinds of strange things in a big city like Paris. |
| 0:18.0 | So it's possible this scene didn't look too out of place. |
| 0:21.0 | A department store employee on a street called Quay de Louvre |
| 0:25.0 | sees a man hurrying by at 7.30 in the morning. |
| 0:29.0 | He's carrying a white wrapped package under his arm, |
| 0:32.0 | heading for a bridge that crosses the Sun River. |
| 0:35.0 | And as he's walking, he throws something small and shiny |
| 0:39.0 | off to the side of the road. |
| 0:42.0 | The employee looks closer and realizes it's a door knob. |
| 0:48.0 | There could be all kinds of explanations for this. |
| 0:51.0 | This is a Monday morning and Sunday at this time |
| 0:55.0 | is a big party night in Paris. |
| 0:57.0 | So, you know, sometimes people randomly end up carrying |
| 1:01.0 | door knobs around after a night on the town. |
| 1:03.0 | Stranger things have happened. |
| 1:06.0 | But in fact, the store employee has just witnessed |
| 1:10.0 | a small part of what will soon become the world's most famous crime. |
| 1:17.0 | The door knob comes from an inside door in a small staircase |
| 1:22.0 | at the Louvre Museum. |
... |
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