[HN Gopher] The heist that made the Mona Lisa famous
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       The heist that made the Mona Lisa famous
        
       Author : thunderbong
       Score  : 38 points
       Date   : 2024-11-05 02:47 UTC (6 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.history.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.history.com)
        
       | LeoPanthera wrote:
       | OK, this is a horrific tangent, but if you haven't seen the
       | classic Doctor Who story "City of Death", go check it out.
       | 
       | Written by Douglas Adams and filmed on-location in Paris, it
       | involves the Mona Lisa being stolen, and is _probably_ the finest
       | Doctor Who story ever written.
       | 
       | In fact it's so good that I'm always a little disappointed by
       | other classic stories in comparison.
        
         | jhdias wrote:
         | https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00vh9yb/doctor-who-19...
        
       | devindotcom wrote:
       | I've always loved this quote: "What audacious criminal, what
       | mystifier, what maniac collector, what insane lover, has
       | committed this abduction?"
       | 
       | Though Peruggia claims he did it out of patriotism, I've always
       | nursed the theory that, during its absence, the original was used
       | as reference to create several extremely good fake versions.
       | These could be sold as the original, since everyone knew it had
       | been stolen, and each would think they had the real one. Then the
       | original is returned, and the buyers are without recourse. What
       | are you going to do, tell the police? And of course Peruggia et
       | al would say nothing.
       | 
       | I suspect this isn't true, but the fun part is that it could be
       | and no one would ever know. So I'm choosing to believe it is so.
        
         | ricksunny wrote:
         | I like this approach to epistemology :) Imagine how many what-
         | ifs it could turn up if automated & applied across the corpus
         | of knowledge (scientific & otherwise) :) We'd have Pepe Silvio
         | on steroids, and that I'd like to see =)
        
         | david927 wrote:
         | The details of the crime seem to point to something like this.
         | 
         | Remember that Picasso was questioned and probably involved. One
         | theory is that what we think is the original is, in fact, a
         | master-copy by Picasso. The original is held privately in
         | Florence.
        
           | pgalvin wrote:
           | Unfortunately (for a fun theory), carbon dating and x-rays of
           | the Mona Lisa have disproved that.
        
       | jampa wrote:
       | Archive link for non-US users:
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20241109154132/https://www.histo...
        
         | mkl wrote:
         | The original worked fine from NZ, so there must be some tighter
         | criterion.
        
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       (page generated 2024-11-11 23:00 UTC)