5 high-profile attacks on famous paintings

Recently, eco-activists of the Just Stop Oil movement have already made several attempts on their artwork. First they poured soup on Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting at the National Gallery in London, and then King George III at Madame Tussauds. They “attacked” the wax statue of Charles with a cake.

On this occasion, we recall the loudest stories of attacks on famous paintings.

“Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci

In general, the picture is considered a champion in the number of assassination attempts. The first attacks on the famous portrait took place in 1956. That year, acid was thrown on the painting and a stone was thrown on it a little later, which damaged the paint. After the attacker admitted that he saw the woman in the picture as his mother.

Danae, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

In 1985, Lithuanian Bronius Maigis splashed sulfuric acid on a canvas at the Hermitage. The paint bubbled and began to change color. The man took out a knife and cut the painting twice. The court recognized him as mentally ill and sent him to a mental hospital in the city of Chernyakhovsk, where he spent six years.

“Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on November 16, 1581” by Ilya Repin

The painting was first attacked in 1913 during the artist’s lifetime. Then “Enough blood!” It was cut by an Old Believer, and Repin personally restored the canvas. The attack was repeated 100 years later, in 2018.

Holy Family, Vasily Vereshchagin

At an exhibition in Vienna in 1885, some visitors felt that the paintings in Vasily Vereshchagin’s Palestine Series hurt their religious feelings. Therefore, hydrochloric acid was applied by a religious fanatic to the artist’s paintings at the Austrian exhibition.

Bridge in Argenteuil by Claude Monet

In 2007, five unidentified people entered the Orsay Museum in Paris. When the alarm sounded, the four of them fled, and the fifth, in a fit of rage, slammed the painting with his fist, punching a 10-centimeter hole.