THE MONA LISA VANISHES

The story of how the Mona Lisa was painted and, centuries later, how it was stolen, recovered, and in the process became the most famous portrait in the world.

Day tells his tale with considerable verve, delivering in alternating sections accounts of the life of Leonardo da Vinci (“an extraordinary, ingenious, wondrously weird man,” with “a mind on fire”) and of the 1911 theft of a then-respected but not particularly popular painting from the musty, dusty Louvre. He traces the way it mushroomed into a huge public sensation—complete with conspiracy theories, ineffectual police work, and suspects ranging from plutocrat J.P. Morgan to young artistic firebrand Pablo Picasso. Helquist’s art adds tongue-in-cheek notes with a bountiful array of scenes depicting expressive, lightly caricatured figures, from the thief (who turned out to be not a slick professional but, at least supposedly, an impulsive Italian patriot) to detectives, officials, and suspects, generally sporting early-20th-century dress and comically diverse mustaches. The painting was recovered in 1913, but the sensation over it has yet to die down, which the author pointedly explains as partly the influence of the press in whipping up controversy, partly the enduring power of conspiracy theories (“People will choose the better story every time”), and partly the painting’s own compellingly enigmatic features. Readers will love the brouhaha and will be tempted to take closer looks at the art too.

A multistranded yarn skillfully laid out in broad, light brush strokes with some cogent themes mixed in.