Mona Lisa recovered after two-year theft — 1913

On December 12, 1913, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was recovered in Florence, ending one of art history's most sensational mysteries.

The painting had vanished from the Louvre in August 1911 when Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian handyman who had worked at the museum, simply lifted it off the wall and walked out. For more than two years, the theft captivated the world. Newspapers published wild theories, the French police interrogated dozens of suspects including Pablo Picasso, and the empty space on the museum wall became a pilgrimage site. Peruggia kept the masterpiece hidden in a trunk in his Paris apartment before attempting to sell it to an art dealer in Florence, who alerted the authorities.

The theft transformed the Mona Lisa from a celebrated Renaissance portrait into a global icon, proving that sometimes scandal writes a work's legacy as powerfully as its creator.