Who stole the Mona Lisa?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/069d8662-be37-11e0-bee9-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1UIyEY27f

by KeepTalking • 15 years ago

148 20 15 years ago

ft.com

mkopinsky2• 15 years ago

Well-written, interesting article. Worth clicking through and reading.

rman666• 15 years ago

wallflower2• 15 years ago

If you liked this heist story, these are two of my all-time favorite HN stories:

"Art of the Steal: On the Trail of World’s Most Ingenious Thief"

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1215138

"The Silver Thief"

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1020547

palish• 15 years ago

SPOILER ALERT: The first link's top comment reads "You have to give the guy credit for <foo and bar and baz>", ruining the story. :/

wallflower2• 15 years ago

Spoiler-free links (Thanks, palish):

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/03/ff_masterthief_blancha...

http://stephenjdubner.com/journalism/silverthief.html

Speaking of spoilers, suspend your sense of physics and go see "Another Earth", fascinating if you forget about the plot blackholes

( http://www.foxsearchlight.com/anotherearth/ )

mkopinsky2• 15 years ago

Thanks for the warning! I read the comment as "You have to give the guy credit for <avert eyes! /> <click link/>"

InclinedPlane• 15 years ago

This is actually an interesting entire family of crimes. Steal a unique, highly valuable item, sell fake copies for full-price now that it's plausible to be the real thing (especially if you set up a sale before the actual theft takes place), then return the original if you care enough. Nobody will turn you in because they'd be admitting to attempting to buy stolen goods.

ertdfgcb• 15 years ago

This could be really dangerous if you aren't careful who you sell to.

wahnfrieden• 15 years ago

It worked brilliantly in this case since they did their business in the US, overseas from where it was stolen.

Create• 15 years ago

http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_bloom_the_origins_of_pleasure....

...for the Han van Meegeren version of it.

muriithi• 15 years ago

"The far-right Action Française newspaper blamed the Jews"

Looks like prejudice is as old as humanity itself!

corin_2• 15 years ago

Wow that's a terrible comment - I won't even point out the difference between 100 years old and the age of humanity.

But any basic knowledge of history should tell you that anti-semitic feelings in Europe were building up in the 19th century. For example Hitler was a huge fan of Richard Wagner (who died 28 years before this 1911 theft), who wrote a famous article, first published anonymously then later republished in his own name, called "Das Judenthum in der Musik", blasting Jewish composers such as Mendlesohn.

nodata• 15 years ago

I like the article, but why is it in the FT? This is more something that suits sister-pulication The Economist.

ComputerGuru• 15 years ago

Not really. It's out of place in both.

Beautifully written, at any rate. Very catching and appealing!

corin_2• 15 years ago

This piece is from the FT magazine, you can see the kind of content they produce for that at http://www.ft.com/magazine

So, could perhaps be argued that the FT magazine is out of place, but within it this piece certainly fits just fine. And personally I rather like it, as an FT subscriber it's nice to get some bonus, often good, content even if it's not related to finance.

dagw• 15 years ago

FT Weekend and FT Magazine do these sorts of stories all the time. People who spend their weekdays worrying about finance want to relax on the weekend and read fun and interesting stories.

meattle• 15 years ago

If you're interested in learning more about the painting, I created an entire mini website about the Mona Lisa a few years ago:

http://hepguru.com/monalisa/

It was featured by USA Today, etc. You may like it.

rsiqueira• 15 years ago

One of the best versions of Mona Lisa is the one engraved by Sanchez-Toda (Spanish bank note and postal stamp designer): http://rsiqueira.postbit.com/mona-lisa

Who stole the Mona Lisa?

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