"On a hot August day in Paris, just over a century ago, a desperate guard burst into the office of the director of the Louvre and shouted, La Joconde, c'est partie! The Mona Lisa, she's gone! No one knew who was behind the heist. Was it an international gang of thieves? Was it an art-hungry American millionaire? Was it the young Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, who was about to remake the very art of painting? Travel back to an extraordinary period...

Explains some basic techniques of Da Vinci by analyzing several of his better-known paintings.

A brief biography of this Italian Renaissance painter accompanies reproductions and analyses of several of his works.

Explores such art topics as style, composition, color, and subject matter as they relate to twelve works by Raphael.