Tourists gather at the main entrance of the Louvre near the famed glass pyramid this past May in Paris, France.
Stanley Tucci is set to star alongside Simona Tabasco (The White Lotus) and Victor Belmondo (Bardot), in Masterplan, an international heist movie directed by Thomas Vincent (Reacher).
Tucci, who just wrapped filming The Devil Wears Prada 2, stars in Masterplan as a seasoned thief who sets his sights on the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic painting that resides at the Louvre in Paris.
Set to shoot in France and Italy, the fictional film taps into the appeal around the increasingly popular heist genre.
However, many aren’t aware that the Mona Lisa, in 1911, actually did vanish from its frame, stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a former Louvre worker who slipped into the museum unnoticed by dressing as an employee.
Peruggia covered the painting and fooled a laborer into unlocking a door that allowed his escape. There were scores of interrogations, an ocean liner was halted and searched, even artist Pablo Picasso was questioned in what was later deemed the greatest theft of the 20th century.
Stanley Tucci received the Renaissance Award this past February in L.A. at AGBO Studios at the annual Russo Brothers Italian American Filmmaker Forum gala. RBIAFF, in collaboration with Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA), awards grants to emerging filmmakers who illuminate aspects of the Italian American experience.
Peruggia, who helped craft the Mona Lisa’s protective glass casing, was arrested in 1913, and the painting was found stowed away in his Paris apartment.
Actor and Filmmaker Stanley Tucci: 2025 RBIAFF ‘Renaissance Award’ Winner
The caper made headlines across the world, and forever reshaped the provenance of da Vinci’s masterpiece.
The newfound worldwide popularity of the artwork surged and has never waned; it’s viewed 10.2 million times per year by visitors to the Louvre.
(Some of those visitors included environmental protesters, who, in 2024, threw soup at the glass-protected Mona Lisa, calling for the right to healthy and sustainable food.)
As fate would have it, the Louvre was robbed today.
The heist unfolded around 9:30 a.m., when thieves used a truck’s lift — the kind used to hoist furniture into Paris apartments — to break into the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon.
Inside the gilded hall, which houses France’s crown jewels, including The Regent, The Sancy, and The Hortensia, the thieves smashed two display cases, grabbed gems and fled on motor scooters.
The entire operation lasted just seven minutes, and the loss is “incalculable” according to authorities.
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