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  • The Mona Lisa Vanishes

  • A Legendary Painter, a Shocking Heist, and the Birth of a Global Celebrity
  • Written by: Nicholas Day
  • Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan
  • Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (1 rating)

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The Mona Lisa Vanishes

Written by: Nicholas Day
Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan
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Publisher's Summary

A propulsive work of narrative nonfiction about how the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre, how the robbery made the portrait the most famous artwork in the world—and how the painting by Leonardo da Vinci should never have existed at all.

On a hot August day in Paris, just over a century ago, a desperate guard burst into the office of the director of the Louvre and shouted, La Joconde, c’est partie! The Mona Lisa, she’s gone!

No one knew who was behind the heist. Was it an international gang of thieves? Was it an art-hungry American millionaire? Was it the young Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, who was about to remake the very art of painting?

Travel back to an extraordinary period of revolutionary change: turn-of-the-century Paris. Walk its backstreets. Meet the infamous thieves—and detectives—of the era. And then slip back further in time and follow Leonardo da Vinci, painter of the Mona Lisa, through his dazzling, wondrously weird life. Discover the secret at the heart of the Mona Lisa—the most famous painting in the world should never have existed at all.

Here is a middle-grade nonfiction written at the pace of a thriller, shot through with stories of crime and celebrity, genius and beauty.
©2023 Nicholas Day (P)2023 Listening Library

What the critics say

“[A] witty thriller." —The New York Times

“The tale of a stunning art heist told with a contagious love of stranger-than-fiction true stories!” —Steve Sheinkin, Newbery Honor–winning author of Bomb

★ "A wildly entertaining, thoroughly contextualized look at art, history, and fame." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

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