“Think of the Earth, people are destroying the Earth,” said a man in a wig as they drove him away from the Louvre Museum.
The Mona Lisa was attacked, but unharmed, when a visitor to the Louvre in Paris tried to crush the glass that protected the world’s most famous painting before smearing the cake on its surface in an apparent related advertising ploy. with the environment.
Paris prosecutors said on Monday that the 36-year-old man had been arrested following Sunday’s incident and sent to a psychiatric police unit.
An investigation has been opened into the damage to cultural artifacts.
Videos posted on social media show a man with a wig and lipstick who arrived in a wheelchair. The man, whose identity was unknown, was also seen throwing roses in the gallery of the museum.
The assailant, disguised as an elderly lady, then jumped out of a wheelchair before attacking the bulletproof glass.
The coca attack left a creamy white spot, but Leonardo da Vinci’s famous work was not damaged.
“Maybe this is crazy for me,” the author posted in a video of the aftermath of the incident, which shows a Louvre employee cleaning the glass. “[He] then he smears the cake on the glass and throws roses everywhere before being approached by security. “
Officials at the Louvre Museum in Paris declined to comment Monday on the strange incident the day before.
Maybe this is crazy for me, but an old-fashioned man jumps out of a wheelchair and tries to break the bulletproof glass of the Mona Lisa. He then smears the cake on the glass and throws roses everywhere before being approached for safety. 😂 ??? pic.twitter.com/OFXdx9eWcM
– Lukeee🧃 (@ lukeXC2002) May 29, 2022
Another video posted on Twitter showed that the same employee had just cleaned the panel while another attendee pulled out a wheelchair in front of Da Vinci’s masterpiece.
“Think of the Earth, people are destroying the Earth,” the man said in French in another video showing security moving him away from the Paris gallery. “Think about it. Artists tell you, think about the Earth. That’s why I did it.”
The 16th century Renaissance masterpiece has been mentioned before. The painting was stolen in 1911 by a museum employee, which increased its international fame.
The Mona Lisa has been behind glass since a Bolivian man threw a stone at the painting in December 1956, damaging his left elbow. In 2005 it was placed in a reinforced box that also controls the temperature and humidity.
In 2009, a Russian woman angry at not being able to obtain French citizenship threw an empty cup of tea into the paint, which slightly scratched the box.
The Louvre is the largest museum in the world, with hundreds of thousands of works that attracted about 10 million visitors a year before the COVID-19 pandemic.