The mesmerising mystery of Mona Lisa’s smile and the way Leonardo magically leveraged it into creating “a factor extra divine than human” and yet “not apart from alive” would show too intense for a lot of to bear. The 19th-Century French art critic Alfred Dumesnil confessed to discovering the portray’s paradox utterly paralysing. In 1854 he asserted that the subject’s “smile is full of attraction, however it is the treacherous attraction of a sick soul that renders sickness. This so soft a look, however avid like the sea, devours”. If legend is to be believed, the “treacherous attraction” of Mona Lisa’s irresolvable smirk consumed too the soul of an aspiring French artist by the name of Luc Maspero.
On the evening of March 18, two thieves dressed as policemen walked into the poorly secured Boston museum after midnight. After duct-taping two hapless security guards, the boys escaped with 13 paintings …