Did Picasso steal the Mona Lisa?

We now remember Pablo Picasso as a leading artist of the 20th century, an important figure in modern art and the development of Cubism.

But there was a time in the 1910s when a younger Picasso was put on trial for the theft of the famous Mona Lisa painting in a case that shocked Paris, France and the wider world.

On August 21 1911, the Mona Lisa painting vanished from the Louvre Museum in Paris.

It was a Monday, the museum was closed and its security was minimal. Painted in the early 1500s by Leonardo da Vinci, the artwork is now one of the most famous paintings in the world. But in the early 20th century, it was not as well-known. While today large queues of people wait to see the Mona Lisa with tight security, at the time of the theft, the painting was not even bolted to the wall.

The robbery was only discovered on Tuesday morning when French artist Louis Béroud arrived at the Louvre intending to paint a copy of the Mona Lisa. Finding an empty space on the wall, the security guards assumed other museum staff had removed the painting for photography, conservation or other research.

After searching the museum, security could not find the painting. The alarm was raised and the police were called.

The police again searched the Louvre - a museum with more than 1,000 rooms - as well as closing French borders. Every vehicle crossing the country's eastern border was examined.

Newspapers offered rewards for information about the robbery - which led to Pablo Picasso becoming a suspect.

Attracted by the cash reward, Honore-Joseph Géry Pieret - who had once been the secretary of poet and writer Guillaume Apollinaire, an associate of Picasso - confessed to a newspaper that, in 1907, he had stolen small Iberian sculptures from the Louvre and sold them to Picasso. Picasso actually used the face of one of the statues in his masterpiece Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

By 1911, Pieret was broke and decided to return to the Louvre to steal more small objects to sell. Apollinaire and Picasso had also not been very discreet about owning the stolen statues.

This put Apollinaire and Picasso in the frame. Realising that they would be suspected of stealing the Mona Lisa, both of them intended to throw the evidence - the small statues - into the Seine. In the end, they could not go through with it and gave them to a newspaper editor instead.

Within a few days, Apollinaire had been arrested on suspicion of stealing the painting, and, under questioning, confessed about Pieret and Picasso's prior thefts. The case ended up in court some days later with both Apollinaire and Picasso suspected of the crime. While Apollinaire confessed, Picasso initially denied everything, even that he knew Apollinaire.

Their emotional evidence and histrionic testimonies convinced Judge Henri Drioux that both men were innocent, and he dismissed the case only giving them a warning.

So, to answer the question, no, Pablo Picasso did not steal the Mona Lisa. But, who did?

After many false leads and red herrings, two years later - in November 1913 - the thief was caught trying to sell the priceless painting to an art dealer in Florence, Italy.

The culprit was Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian who moved to Paris in his 20s. Peruggia was a handyman and had been a former employee of the Louvre.

In the end, he was convicted and given a relatively short sentence of just a year and fifteen days in prison. Upon appeal, his lawyers managed to get the sentence reduced to seven months.

And how did he pull off this audacious art heist? He hid in a broom closet until the museum closed on Sunday night and quietly took the portrait off the wall, slipped it under his coat and simply walked out.