Just spent 10 mins reading, good story but abridged version:
- An Italian Louvre worker, Vincenzo Perugia, stole the Mona Lisa, claiming his motivation was that the French had stolen works from Italy.
- Years later he attempted to give it back but claim a reward. He changed his story a few times about how he stole it.
- The revelation of the larger crime was that a slick con-man claimed he helped Vincenzo steal the work for the purpose of selling credible fakes to a handful of American millionaires since it was widely reported that the original was stolen.
Italy in 1913 was nominally an ally of Germany and Austria, but in truth more closely allied with France. It's possible that the French and Italian authorities wanted to avoid a public spectacle that would inflame nationalists in both countries and make it more difficult to keep Italy a defacto French ally.
There was a British TV series that I watched some of a while back about a group of con artists (sorry, I can not remember the name right now). Several of the episodes had this same plot: the group of con artists would steal some valuable antique, and then sell forgaries of it, before returning it as part of a plea bargan.
What's interesting is that there are people willing to pay millions to have a piece of art that they can't show to anybody or brag about it.
I guess these people are true art lovers.
The story is entertaining, but the con-man angle tacked at the end is highly dubious. Even if there was reason to believe that Valfierno even existed, its hard to swallow a century-old third-hand tale from an admitted con-man without a shred of evidence. Moreover, there's nothing about his story that explains the theft and plenty that contradicts known details. Sometimes lone nuts really do commit crimes beyond their stature.
- An Italian Louvre worker, Vincenzo Perugia, stole the Mona Lisa, claiming his motivation was that the French had stolen works from Italy.
- Years later he attempted to give it back but claim a reward. He changed his story a few times about how he stole it.
- The revelation of the larger crime was that a slick con-man claimed he helped Vincenzo steal the work for the purpose of selling credible fakes to a handful of American millionaires since it was widely reported that the original was stolen.