When Bernard Berenson learned that Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa had been stolen from the Louvre Gallery in Paris, the art critic heaved an enormous sigh of relief. Finally, he reflected, he could remove himself once and all from the dangerous influence of the work. “She had simply become an incubus,” he recalled years later, “and I was glad to be rid of her.”
At long last, Berenson had freed himself from the vampiric face of the Mona Lisa.
