The iconic Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci recently became the latest victim of vandalism as a man claiming to be a climate activist smeared cake all over the bulletproof protecting the painting.
As per a report in Marca, the person involved was a man in a wheelchair who wore a wig. He suddenly jumped up from the wheelchair and threw cake on the iconic painting. The man disguised as a woman even attempted to break through the bulletproof glass that protected Leonardo da Vinci's work in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Even though the painting was not damaged by the act, it left art enthusiasts stunned all over the world. This is not the first time that attempts were made to vandalise artworks of great importance, let’s take a look back:
Earlier attacks on Mona Lisa
In August 2009, a Russian woman, who was apparently frustrated at having failed to obtain French nationality, according to The Guardian, hurled a ceramic cup at the Mona Lisa but failed to leave her mark on Leonardo da Vinci's painting.
The woman hurled an English-made cup at the painting which shattered against the protective bulletproof glass, leaving the masterpiece undamaged. She was immediately apprehended.
According to the Cabinet Magazine, a homeless man named Hugo Unzaga Villegas threw a stone at the famous painting on 30 December, 1956. The man entered the museum in the hope to be jailed because he was cold and had no place to go.
One of the most famous attacks on the painting was also the one that made it internationally famous. The Mona Lisa catapulted to public fame after it was stolen from the Louvre in 1911. The painting remained untraceable for the next two years until the thief, Vincenzo Peruggia, tried to contact an Italian dealer.
Other famous acts of vandalism on artworks
In 2008, an all-white painting by US artist Cy Twombly was left ‘reddened’ when a Cambodian woman kissed the canvas at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Avignon in southern France. She was later ordered to community service in addition to a fine.
In 2007, according to The Guardian, a group of drunk vandals managed to break into the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, punching a hole in Le Pont d'Argenteuil, by Claude Monet. The vandals left a four-inch horizontal tear in the Le Pont d'Argenteuil, which shows a view of the Seine at a rural bend, featuring a bridge and boats in Monet’s inimitable style.
In 2006, Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain became the victim to a hammer attack by a French performance artist named Pierre Pinoncelli. He called his action a work of art and a tribute to Duchamp and other Dada artists.
In 1985, an unemployed ex-soldier, Robert Arthur Cambridge, entered the National Gallery minutes before the closing time and walked around the museum for a minute or two before choosing The Virgin and the Child with Saint Anne and John The Baptist as his target.
Drawing a sawed-off shotgun from underneath his overcoat, Cambridge fired at the artwork, shattering its glass and dealing significant damage to the painting. The Leonardo painting was later restored.
In 1975, Rembrandt’s The Night Watch was slashed in more than a dozen places by one Wilhelmus de Rijk, an unemployed school teacher. According to a Reuters report, Rijk committed suicide in a mental home the next year.
In 1972, Laszlo Toth, a Hungarian-born Australian geologist, attacked Michelangelo's Pietà with a hammer, crying "I am Jesus Christ, risen from the dead." He hit the work 15 times before being pulled away from it by an Italian fireman and several plainclothes guards.
Da Vinci’s The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist was earlier attacked in 1962 when Franz Weng, a German-born artist threw an unopened bottle of ink at the artwork. After the arrest, Weng was diagnosed as being a paranoid schizophrenic.
In 1914, the militant suffragette Mary Richardson attacked Velázquez's Rokeby Venus in London's National Gallery as a protest against the arrest of her fellow suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst.
With inputs from agencies
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