We chase the brazen thief who stole the Mona Lisa to find out how she was recovered and how she became so famous, then scrutinize the official portrait of Napoleon's coronation to reveal a canvas of lies. We re-stage the jousting accident that killed a king to discover whether his head wound was inevitably fatal, then enter the turbulent life of a young artist to find out whether he was driven mad by sexual guilt or his attempts to paint a tragedy...

"Rohan, a young mangaka, meets a beautiful mysterious young woman with a dramatic story. Seeing him draw, she tells him of a cursed 200 year old painting using the blackest ink ever known from a 1000 year old tree the painter had brought down without approval from the Emperor who had him executed for doing so. The painting meanwhile had been saved from destruction by a curator of the Louvre. Rohan forgets this story as he becomes famous but ten years...

The untold story of Vincenzo Peruggia, the Italian immigrant who committed the greatest little-known art theft in history. For more than 30 years, writer/director Joe Medeiros was obsessed with finding out Peruggia's true motive. So with the help of researchers, art experts and Celestina Peruggia's children Silvio and Graziella, Medeiros and his team embarked on an epic journey leading them to the Louvre, to Peruggia's hiding place in Paris, to Florence....

This oversize, colorful companion to Art up close examines 24 reproductions of art housed in the Louvre accompanied by magnified details which readers can locate within each reproduction (answers are provided in the back, along with further information about the artist or artistic media)