The Mona Lisa or La
Gioconda is a half-length portrait of a woman painted by the Italian artist
Leonardo da Vinci during the European Renaissance period. It is not a large
painting but it is popularly acclaimed as the most 'visited' and 'viewed'
painting in time. It stands at a mere 77 cm x 53 cm as an oil on canvas
and was created somewhere between 1503 and 1517. The subject of the painting is
thought to be Lisa del Giocondo b.1749 d. 1542, also known as Lisa Gherardini,
the wife of a Florentine cloth merchant.
The Mona Lisa has been standing in the Musée du Louvre in Paris since the year 1797, and which was established in 1792 at the beginning of the turbulent French Revolutionary period. http://www.louvre.fr/en
The
Louvre, Musée du Louvre, houses some of the finest art works ever
created and is the world's most visited museum with 10 million visitors per
year. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, which was originally built as
a fortress in the late 12th century for King Philip II. The building was
extended several times over the next 400 years as the Royal Household until 1682
when King Louis XIV decided to move residence to the Palace of Versailles and
thus leaving the Louvre as a large private museum of the King, containing a large
collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture as well as a growing collection
of oil paintings. In 1692, the Louvre was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de
Sculpture. With the coming of the French Revolution, in 1793 the new
National Assembly government of France declared that the Louvre should become
the national museum to display it’s fine collection to the French public. On
the 10 August 1793 the Musée du Louvre held its first public exhibition of 537 paintings.
Between 1796 and 1801 the Musée du Louvre had to close for renovations and it is during
this period that the famous Mona Lisa arrived in Paris after Napoleon’s
successful campaigns in Italy brought back to Paris a huge amount of art and
treasures. At the end of Napoleon’s First Italian Campaign in 1797, Italian
cities were ordered to contribute fine art to the Musée du Louvre as the Treaty of Campo
Formio sought to systematically plunder Italian cities much to the outrage of
their citizens. During the Egyptian campaign in 1799 Napoleon seized large
artifacts from the Valley of the Kings and the famous Rosetta stone, discovered in 1799, and which
eventually led scholars to decipher ancient Egyptain hieroglyphs. Reopened as
the Musée Napoléon under the new
French Empire period of political stability the collection grew even larger. After
Napoleon’s abdication and exile the Musée du Louvre amassed over 20,000 major works
under the peaceful reigns of reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X. With the
Second Empire Period with the accession of the French emperor Napoleon III, the nephew of
Napoleon I in 1852, the Musée du Louvre once again began to grow with several public
donations towards the end of the nineteen century.
Not
many people realize that prior to World War II Adolf Hitler had formed a
secretive military unit solely for the purpose of securing the most famous
works of art in Europe. True enough Adolf Hitler had a passion for fine art
being a former art student himself; but with the modernization of the German
military in the 1930's and the consolidation of his power, Hitler was astute
enough to recognize that fine art would become a valuable resource to command
on top of such natural commodities like crude oil and iron. Thus when Germany
began to expand and annex territories of German speaking peoples, Adolf Hitler
chose to leave Switzerland alone for he needed the country to be independent to
be able to conduct all kinds of commodity and banking transactions inclusive of
the sale of fine art.
The
first military units expressly organized for the purpose of securing,
administering and organizing stolen valuables, was collectively known as the Kunstschutz,
first organized in 1933 after Adolf Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany.
The members of this unit were given the title of 'art office' or Kunstoffizier
and also senior specialist members were given the title of 'art expert'
or Kunstsachverständiger.
The
first organized plunder of art began before the outbreak of war with the Kunstschutz
given the authority to collect any art from German museums, galleries and
even form its own citizens. Prior to 1939 some 1290 oil paintings, 7350
watercolors, prints and sketches and 160 sculptures and 3300 other works were
confiscated. At this point Hitler decided to filter 'unwanted art' and arranged
a huge pyre in Berlin on 20th March 1939. The rest was carted off to
Switzerland to be sold off at the Galerie Fischer in Lucerne. Many of the
purchasers and indeed the gallery did not know that the art was stolen.
With
the outbreak of war Adolf Hitler formed a new unit to be called the 'ERR' or Einsatzstab
Reichsleiter Rosenberg for the express purpose of plundering all art from
the conquered European territories. it is at this point that the story of
intrigue around the famous Mona Lisa of Leonardo da Vinci begins. With the
advent of World War II, Germany invaded France in 1940. Adolf Hitler had never
forgiven France for it’s role in the humiliation of Germany at the treaty of
Versailles o the 28th June 1919. The enforcement of the ‘War Guilt
Clause’ upon Germany with substantial territorial concessions and economic and
financial reparations as compensation for losses incurred to the Allies or ‘Entente
Powers’ was excessive as pointed out by famous British economist of the time
John Maynard Keynes. The social and economic chaos that ensued with a crippled
Germany became the source of anger that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler. The
Battle of France began on 10th May 1940 with the German invasion of
the Netherlands and Belgium and then quickly resulted in the invasion of France
which outflanked the famous Maginot line of defense resulting with the German
military arriving in an undefended Paris on the 14th June 1940.
Altogether the operation saw the mobilization of 3.5 million German and Italian
forces versus 3.3 million Allied troops resulting in 55,000 German and Italian
losses versus 360,000 Allied losses and 1.9m men captured. On 22nd
June 1940 a humiliating Armistice was signed in the very same carriage the
Allies humiliated Germany in 1919 with the signing of the treaty of Versailles.
As a result Germany occupied the north and west of France and its ally Italy
occupied the south. With the arrival of German forces in Paris, Adolf Hitler
spared little time to effect his master-plan rape of Paris of virtually any
precious art his hateful 'ERR' or Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg could find.
The intrigue of the Mona Lisa begins almost
immediately when Germany invaded the Sudetenland in 1939 with the French
already certain that the revenge on Paris was to follow. With a deep sense of
foreboding the now world famous Musée du Louvre began moving many important
works like the sculptures of ‘Winged Victory of Samothrace’ were sent to the Château de Valençay in the Indre department in central
France, built between 1540 and 1700 at the commission of the famous French
family of financiers headed by Jacques d'Estampes, and the Mona Lisa to the
Château de Chambord in the Loire valley built by King Francis I from 1519 -
1547. The mass exodus left Paris on 27th August 1939 and by the 28th
December 1939 the Musée du Louvre was cleared of its most important and finest works.
Only the heavy, immovable, fragile and unimportant works were left in its
basement by the insightful directors of the Musée du Louvre as an affront to the Nazi
Dictator with revenge set in his heart. Needless to say that when German Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt arrived at the Musée du Louvre in October 1940 he was certainly not amused to witness the astonishing absence of most of the museum's world famous treasures.
 | |||
| German Filed Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt pictured with the Musée du Louvre curator Alfred Merlin at the foot of the Venus de Milo on October 7, 1940. |
Adolf Hitler, being a lover of art, thought it
natural that one day in the future he would adorn his native Austria with a
famous museum near the large city of Linz in upper Austria very close to the
place of his birth at the small town of Braunau am Inn, near the German border.
Eventually the Mona Lisa was found by the ‘ERR’ at the Château de Chambord in
the Loire valley, secured and taken to Austria in 1941. Since Hitler’s
architects were still in the planning stage of the museum for Linz the only
convenient storage space the ERR could find was an abandoned salt mine located
at Altaussee nearby. Of course nobody would ever think that such precious fine
art would be stored in a salt mine! So the location became the perfect retreat
for over 12,000 pieces of fine art of Rembrandt and Vermeer and other masters
and also inclusive of the famous Mona Lisa. It is thought that the Mona Lisa
and other pieces of fine art were retrieved in 1945 after Austrian double
agents undertook to assist the Allies to capture the fine art in a secret
mission named Operation Ebensburg.
In desperation and a fit of madness in 1945 Hitler ordered that the
collection of fine art in the Altausee should be burned to a cinder if the
Allies were to approach the vicinity and fight for its recovery. A notorious and
fanatical SS officer by the name of Herr Eigruber was charged to destroy
everything to the bitter end. Under Operation Ebensburg Austrian agents
for the Allies parachuted into the mountainous location and attempted to cut
all telephone communications to the mine and watch for any dispatches that
would need to be thwarted thus enveloping the mine in a shroud of silence until
the Allied forces could reach the location. It is noted by the Musée du Louvre
in official records that 80 wagons of stolen art arrived back in Paris on 12th
December 1945, after the war had closed, and at around the same time the Mona Lisa was installed back in its original home.
However, in the late 1940’s shortly after the war, a new story had
emerged to throw into confusion the entire story of the Mona Lisa and the Nazi
theft. The Mona Lisa was placed firmly in the Musée du Louvre in December 1945. But did the famous work of art actually arrive in the wagon train from Austria or did the work mysteriously reappear coincidentally at the same time as the arrival of all the other stolen art?
In the later 1940’s rumors started to emerge that the nazi's may have botched their own pursuit of seizing the Mona Lisa. In fact, an identical and contemporary copy of the Mona Lisa of similar 77 cm x 53 cm dimensions may have become the stolen piece take by the 'ERR' to the Austrian salt mines! Today this surviving copy is known as 'MNR 265' and which again originates from the 16th century and which is the surviving copy of 3 known copies. Art experts have traced its origins from the very oak panel that was used to make the board of horizontal strips upon which the work was painted. Ring analysis determines the origins of the board to a 1602 East Baltic oak tree that was used sometime before 1630. Baltic Oak tree panels were popular in France at the time. Historians are now in agreement that in fact there were three identical and unidentified copies of the Mona Lisa that were made: 1. The copy of Mona Lisa painted at the French palace of Fontainebleau during the reign of King Henry IV (1589-1610), who had sponsored the Second School of Fontainebleau 2. another copy painting was made by the court painter Ambroise Dubois at about 1610 and 3. yet another copy was painted in the reign of Louis XII (1610-43). Cassiano dal Pozzo writes in 1625 that the English Duke of Buckingham admonishes the great Flemish Baroque style painter Rubens for failing to secure the copy at Fontainebleau for his collection. Also in 1790, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great English portrait painter, presented to the 5th Duke of Leeds, a fellow member of the Society of Dilettanti, with one of his self-portraits. This was in appreciation for the Duke having gifted to Sir Joshua Reynolds a copy of Mona Lisa that was to become one of his prized possessions. indeed, the very Secretary of the French Academy had even told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he was in fact in possession of the Leonardo da Vinci original Mona Lisa and which of course led to the great delight of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The fame and financial success of Sir Joshua Reynolds led him to acquire masterpieces for his own collection and indeed the artist is said to have had at one time no fewer that 12 original works of Leonardo da Vinci.
So did the Nazi's really secure the Mona Lisa as they thought they had in its secret placement in the salt mines at Altaussee in Austria? Or is the real astonishing truth that the real Mona Lisa never actually left France in a story of masterful deception to conceal the great work of Leonardo da Vinci somewhere in France? If Sir Joshua Reynold himself and the French Academy in 1790 were unable to determine the original masterpiece, or the Duke of Buckingham 170 years earlier, then truly the 'ERR' may have fallen victim to an amazing and brilliant strategy of deceit. Would Adolf Hitler and his Kunstsachverständiger have known if they were gazing at the actual Mona Lisa or one of the three ingenious, identical and contemporary copies? Perhaps the real truth is buried for all time with the history of the Nazi search for the Mona Lisa in the year 1940 and the attempts by the French to hide whatever masterpiece they could hide.
So did the Nazi's really secure the Mona Lisa as they thought they had in its secret placement in the salt mines at Altaussee in Austria? Or is the real astonishing truth that the real Mona Lisa never actually left France in a story of masterful deception to conceal the great work of Leonardo da Vinci somewhere in France? If Sir Joshua Reynold himself and the French Academy in 1790 were unable to determine the original masterpiece, or the Duke of Buckingham 170 years earlier, then truly the 'ERR' may have fallen victim to an amazing and brilliant strategy of deceit. Would Adolf Hitler and his Kunstsachverständiger have known if they were gazing at the actual Mona Lisa or one of the three ingenious, identical and contemporary copies? Perhaps the real truth is buried for all time with the history of the Nazi search for the Mona Lisa in the year 1940 and the attempts by the French to hide whatever masterpiece they could hide.
Today, the Musée du Louvre contains more than
380,000 objects of fine art from paintings to sculptures with some 35,000 works
of art on permanent It is the world's most visited museum with an average of 15,000
visitors per day mostly foreign tourists who flock to see the mysterious Mona Lisa or La
Gioconda by Leonardo da Vinci.
Reflections upon fine art by Pieter Bergli
For my readers that enjoy a cafe and something to read please turn to my other blog -
http://thegenteelworldofcoffee.blogspot.com/
and of course for lovers of art
https://www.pinterest.com/myartmusings/
Thank you
* European Union laws require that all visitors to this blog from the European Union are aware that cookies are used by Blogger and Google, including the use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies and in reading all material from this blog readers based in the European Union hereby do consent to the use of such cookies for use by Google Analytics and AdSense
Reflections upon fine art by Pieter Bergli
For my readers that enjoy a cafe and something to read please turn to my other blog -
http://thegenteelworldofcoffee.blogspot.com/
and of course for lovers of art
https://www.pinterest.com/myartmusings/
Thank you
* European Union laws require that all visitors to this blog from the European Union are aware that cookies are used by Blogger and Google, including the use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies and in reading all material from this blog readers based in the European Union hereby do consent to the use of such cookies for use by Google Analytics and AdSense
