Eduardo de Valfierno Eduardo de Valfierno Eduardo de Valfierno (1850–1931), who posed as a "marqués" (marquis), was an Argentine con man who allegedly masterminded the theft of the "Mona Lisa" in 1911. In 1932 journalist Karl Decker published a story in the "Saturday Evening Post" claiming Valfierno paid several men to steal the work of art from the Louvre, including museum employee Vincenzo Peruggia. On August 21, 1911 Peruggia hid the "Mona Lisa" under his coat and simply walked out the door. Before the heist took place, Valfierno allegedly commissioned French art restorer and forger Yves Chaudron to make six copies of the
The Fifer The Fifer The Fifer or Young Flautist is a painting by French painter Édouard Manet, made in 1866. It is usually kept in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, and is now on loan to the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum in Abu Dhabi, UAE. On a trip to Spain in 1865, Édouard Manet visited the Prado, where the art of Diego Velázquez was a revelation. Upon his return to Paris in 1866, he began work on a new painting, depicting an anonymous regimental fifer of the Spanish army. In this picture, Manet presents the uniformed boy, in a manner that imitates and