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regular-article-logo Wednesday, 10 July 2024

Creamed Mona Lisa shaken, not damaged

Perpetrator was a man disguised as an old lady who jumped out of a wheelchair before attacking the glass

Reuters, AP/PTI Paris Published 31.05.22, 02:13 AM
A picture taken from a video shows visitors taking pictures of the Mona Lisa after cream was smeared on its protective glass

A picture taken from a video shows visitors taking pictures of the Mona Lisa after cream was smeared on its protective glass Twitter@klevisl007

The Mona Lisa was left shaken but unharmed on Sunday when a visitor to the Louvre tried to smash the glass protecting the world’s most famous painting before smearing cream across its surface in an apparent climate-related publicity stunt.

The perpetrator was a man disguised as an old lady who jumped out of a wheelchair before attacking the glass. “Maybe this is just nuts to me...,” posted the author of a video of the incident’s aftermath that shows a Louvre staffer cleaning the glass. “(He) then proceeds to smear cake on the glass, and throws roses everywhere before being tackled by security.”

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Another video posted on social media showed the same staffer finishing cleaning the pane while another attendant removes a wheelchair from the front of the Da Vinci masterpiece.

“Think of the earth, people are destroying the earth”, the man, dressed in a wig, said in French in another video posting that showed him being led away from the Paris gallery with the wheelchair, indicating that the incident likely had an environmentalist motive.

A Louvre statement confirmed the attack on the artwork involving a “patisserie”.

The painting has seen a lot in its over-500 years in existence. It was stolen in 1911 by a museum employee, an event which increased the painting’s international fame. It was also damaged in an acid attack perpetrated by a vandal in the 1950s, and has since been kept behind glass.

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