Thanks to a pane of glass, the more than 500-year-old image remained undamaged. The police arrested the man and admitted him to a psychiatric ward for “attempted damage to cultural property”. The museum management declined to comment on the incident.
The disguised man’s cake attack had become public via social networks. A Twitter user named Lukeee wrote that while visiting the Mona Lisa on Sunday afternoon, a man wearing a woman’s wig got out of a wheelchair. The attacker tried to smash the glass case in which the “Mona Lisa” is located. After that he “smeared cake on the glass and threw roses everywhere before he was grabbed by the security guards”. A photo or video of the actual cake throw has not yet appeared.
The stranger apparently wanted his action to be understood as a call for environmental protection. “There are people who are destroying the earth,” he said in French in Lukeee’s video. “All artists, think of the earth. That’s why I made this. Think of the planet.”
Protected with bulletproof glass
In December 1956, a Bolivian threw a stone at the “Mona Lisa” and damaged the painting. As a consequence, the picture was protected with safety glass.
Since 2005, the picture has been behind bulletproof glass in a transparent box that ensures ideal temperature and humidity. In 2009, a Russian woman threw an empty teacup on the glass case, slightly scratching it.
Source: Nachrichten
