"LA GICONDA."

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1614, 4 December 1912, Page 9

"LA GICONDA."

ANOTHER DA VINCI PORTRAIT.

A cablegram dated November 24, published in the Sydney "Sun," states,Tlie authorities at the. Louvre have, just had submitted to them what,is declared to be a' second portrait by Leouardi da Vinci of ."La*Griocpnda," .whqm the Italian master immortalised in his famous Mona Lisa, .reported to have been stolen from, tho Louvre a little over a year ago. . , Th© mystery of the missing Mona Lisa has nof vet been solved. Of the many stories told regarding the fate,of- Leonardi's masterpiece the latest. and moat startling is that recently, given by Paris correspondent of London "Truth ' ;jr "We- shall never again see Leonardi da Vinci's famous picture," wrote this correspondent. • "One might wish it had been stolen,- for then there would have been, hope for ita reappearance. The fact Ms; I learn, that it never left the Louvre; it, perished . there. A photographer's ■ cm> ployee, wishing to avenge himself on the ■world l ,-at large for what he thought his wrongful dismissal; imagined a piece of sabotage worthy of a twentieth century Herostrates; lie spread the contents of a phial of sulnhuric acid over the portrait pf Mona Lisa. From another source I. have heard further particulars. I do not vouch- for them with the same certainty,, but regard* thein, nevertheless, as highly probable. The. vitriol, outrage oh the (Jioconda ivas committed a year or two before the'world learnt of the theft. .The picture supposed to- have been stolen was; .in fact, a copy." •