The Mona Lisa Exposed: Introduction: Timeline (The Mona Lisa)

Introduction

Timeline of Leonardo's work

Timeline of the Mona Lisa

Historical Timeline

Bibliography

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Timeline

Timeline of the Mona Lisa

1503		Leonardo begins painting the Mona Lisa, which he will work on for four years (according to Leonardo da Vinci's biographer, Giorgio Vasari.)
1504		Raphael arrives in Florence and visits Leonardo's studio.
1507		Leonardo is appointed painter and engineer at the court of Louis XII in France.
1506		Leonardo paints the London National Gallery version of Virgin of the Rocks.
1513		Leonardo settles in Rome under the patronage of Giuliano de Medici.
1514		Leonardo accepts the patronage of Francois I of France and moves into the manor house of Cloux near Amboise. He paints the only known authentic likeness of himself, inscribed by a later hand: "Leonardo da Vinci, portrait of himself as an old man."
1515		Leonardo paints St. John the Baptist.
1519		Leonardo dies at the age of sixty-seven at the manor of Cloux near Amboise.
1530s		Francois I displays the Mona Lisa in a semi-public art gallery at Fontainebleau, his favorite chateau.
1550		Giorgio Vasari publishes the earliest known biography of Leonardo da Vinci, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, thirty-one years after Leonardo's death.
1793		The Louvre Museum opens.
1800		The Mona Lisa is hung in Napoleon Bonapart's bedroom in the Tuileries.
1804		The Mona Lisa is installed in the Grand Gallery of the Louvre.
1881		Vincenzo Perugia is born in Dumenza, a locality in northern Italy near Lake Como.
1908		Perugia moves to a rooming house at 5 rue de l'Hopital-Saint-Louis in Paris. He works briefly as a carpenter at the Louvre.
1910		The Director of the National Museums, Théophile Homolle, laughs at the possibility of theft from the Louvre: "You might as well pretend that one could steal the towers of Notre Dame!"
1911, August 21		The theft of Mona Lisa is discovered.
1911, August 29		Géry Piéret delivers a statue stolen from the Louvre to the offices of the Paris-Journal.
1911, September 6		Paris-Journal prints the story that it has received the other two stolen statues.
1911, September 7		French detectives make their first and only arrest in the case – Guillaume Apollinaire. Apollinaire implicates Pablo Picasso. Picasso is brought in for questioning and released.
1911, September 12		Apollinaire is released.
1911, September 13		Paris-Journal reports that Apollinaire was described by La Sureté as "the chief of an international gang that has come to France to rifle our museums."
1911, September		Following a report to the French Cabinet, Homolle is forced to resign as museum director.
1912 Spring		The still-missing painting is honored in a traditional mid-Lent parade in Paris with a float showing Mona Lisa taking off in an airplane for points unknown.
1913 Autumn		Florentine antique dealer, Alfredo Geri, prepares an exhibition and places an advertisement in several Italian newspapers stating that he is "a buyer at good prices of art objects of every sort."
November 29, 1913		Geri receives a letter with a Paris postmark in response to his ad, from a man calling himself "Leonardo Vincenzo," who says he has the Mona Lisa in his possession and wishes to restore the painting to Italy.
December 10, 1913		Vincenzo Perugia (a.k.a. Leonardo Vincenzo) arrives at Geri's shop on the Via Borgognissanti in Florence.
December 11, 1913		Geri and Giovanni Poggi, director of the Uffizi, meet Perugia in his room at the Hotel Tripoli-Italia. Perugia opens a trunk and removes the Mona Lisa, which had been hidden under a false bottom. Perugia is immediately arrested.
December 31, 1913		Mona Lisa returns to Paris in a special compartment of the Milan-Paris express.
December, 1913		Mona Lisa is displayed at the Uffizi, then is sent on a tour of the museums of Italy before being sent back to France.
January 4, 1914		Mona Lisa is returned to her new place in the Louvre's Salon Carré.
June, 1914		Perugia is placed on trial in Florence, where he gains popularity as a patriot for returning Mona Lisa to Italy. He is given a minimum sentence and released almost immediately for time served.
1963		Mona Lisa visits the United States for seven weeks – first at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and then at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is seen by one million six-hundred-thousand visitors.
1974		Mona Lisa travels to the Tokyo National Museum and then to the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, where she is seen by more than 2 million viewers.

Note: Many of the above dates, in particular those given to paintings, are only approximate.

Did you know?

Although the true identity of the Mona Lisa remains a mystery, most experts believe it is the wife of a 16th-century Florentine businessman, Francesco del Giocondo, who commissioned the portrait (hence the name "La Gioconda").