The latest novel by Peachtree City author Lynn Murphy has its roots in a true story about the evacuation of priceless art and sculptures from the Louvre in 1939 to keep them from Nazi hands.
Murphy’s 16th novel, “Hiding Mona Lisa”, is about an art curator who hates Nazis and loves art just a little too much, a beautiful art thief with a crush on the curator and a Nazi with a talent for forgery. All three are determined to keep the world’s most famous painting from Adolf Hitler.
Murphy describes the novel as “part romance, part thriller, part fiction and part historical truth.”
Murphy, a certified teacher with endorsements in Art and English, teaches high school and middle school art and middle school English at Arlington Christian School in Fairburn. She is a two time recipient of The Margot Stern Strom Teaching Award from Facing History and Ourselves, and was a semi-finalist for the Irena Sendler Award.
Murphy has been toying with the idea of writing a novel based on the evacuation of the Louvre since she first heard the incredible story in a video on the history of the famous museum that she found for her middle school art classes.
“The amazing thing is that although the planning took place over a span of 11 months, the museum’s contents were packed and evacuated over three days,” Murphy said. “It was all taken to various depots, but every object that was evacuated was returned to the Louvre.”
During the summer of 1939, the director of the Louvre, Jacques Jaujard, oversaw the planning and evacuation of the contents of the museum. Everything, including the Mona Lisa, was packed and moved to chateaus in the French countryside to protect it from the expected bombing and also from Hitler’s well-documented art plunder. As chronicled in “The Monuments Men,” Hitler had plans to build a Fuhrermuseum in Linz, Austria, and looted and his way across Europe during World War II.
The Nazis took art treasures from museums, cathedrals and private collections in every country he invaded. Experts estimate the Nazis stole 650,000 pieces of valuable art from Europe and pieces are still being discovered. In recent years, a literal treasure trove of art valued at about a billion dollars was found by German officials in the Munich apartment of an aging recluse.
“I greatly admire what Jacques Jaujard did during that time, saving so many important works of art,” Murphy said of why the topic captured her imagination. “I admire him so much that I wrote him into the novel. I tried to portray him as the person my research suggests that he was; dedicated to the national art collection, but more than that, dedicated to and concerned for the safety of his employees. The rest of the characters are purely fictitious.”
Murphy is the author of several novels, including Terezin Twilight, Look to The Rainbow, Only For You, Just Thinking Of You, Dream A Little Dream and Unsinkable.
She has also authored several young adult novels, including A Little Night Music, The Time of My Life, and Think of Me.
Hiding Mona Lisa is available in paperback and kindle formats. Murphy’s website is www.booksbylynnmurphy.com.
