About this item
If you read one book on the Mona Lisa, let this be it. From the artwork to its theft and role in popular culture, The Thefts of the Mona Lisa provides the complete story, as written by a best-selling, Pulitzer finalist.Leonardo da Vinci's portrait, called the Mona Lisa, is without doubt the world's most famous painting. It achieved its fame not only because it is a remarkable example of Renaissance portraiture, created by an acclaimed artistic and scientific genius, but because of its criminal history. The Mona Lisa (also called La Gioconda or La Joconde) was stolen on 21 August 1911 by an Italian, Vincenzo Peruggia. Peruggia was under the mistaken impression that the Mona Lisa had been stolen from Italy during the Napoleonic era, and he wished to take back for Italy one of his country's greatest treasures.
About the Author
Noah Charney holds Masters degrees in art history from The Courtauld Institute and University of Cambridge , and a PhD from University of Ljubljana. He is Adjunct Professor of Art History at the American University of Rome, a Visiting Lecturer for Brown University abroad programs, and is the founder of ARCA, the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, a non-profit research group on issues in art crime (www.artcrimeresearch.org) .His work in the field of art crime has been praised in such forums as The New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, BBC Radio, National Public Radio, El Pais, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Tatler among others. He has appeared on radio and television, including BBC, ITV, CNBC, National Geographic and MSNBC, as a presenter and guest expert. He is in constant demand as a lecturer. He has given popular TEDx talks, was a finalist for the main TED event, and teaches a Guardian Masterclass called "How to Write About Art."Charney is the author of numerous academic and popular articles, contributing regularly to The Guardian, the Daily Beast, Atlantic, Salon, The Art Newspaper, The Believer, Esquire and many others. His first novel, The Art Thief (Atria 2007) , is currently translated into seventeen languages and is a best-seller in five countries. He is the editor of an academic essay collection entitled Art & Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art World (Praeger 2009) and the Museum Time series of guides to museums in Spain (Planeta 2010) . His is author of a critically-acclaimed work of non-fiction, Stealing the Mystic Lamb: the True History of the World's Most Coveted Masterpiece (PublicAffairs 2011) , which is a best-seller in two countries. His latest book is The Thefts of the Mona Lisa: On Stealing the World's Most Famous Painting (ARCA Publications 2011) . Upcoming books include The Art of Forgery (Phaidon 2015) and The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art (Norton 2015) . He lives in Italy and Slovenia, and lectures internationally in the subjects of art history and art crime. Learn more at www.noahcharney.com or join him on Facebook.
