By: Roy Wang

A man who appears to have been disguised as an old woman in a wheelchair threw a piece of cake at the famous painting Sunday.

The young man, 37, was also seen throwing roses in the gallery of the Louvre, to the bewilderment of other guests present.

The man was detained by museum security shortly after the incident, and is reported by the Associated Press to have shouted out, (In French) “Think of the Earth! There are people who are destroying the Earth! Think about it. Artists tell you: think of the Earth. That’s why I did this,” as he was being escorted away.

The Mona Lisa was not harmed as a result of the incident, thanks to a piece of glass protecting the painting.

This is not the first time the portrait has been subject to attack; in the 1950s, there were several attempts to damage it.

First, someone unsuccessfully tried to damage the painting with a razor blade. Later, it received damage after a vandal poured acid on it during an exhibition, and a Bolivian man once chucked a rock at it, causing a tiny fleck of paint to be chipped off, and the painting was quickly restored afterwards.

There was also an incident in Tokyo in 1974, where a Japanese woman attempted to spray red paint all over the Mona Lisa when it was on exhibit in the Tokyo National Museum.

More recently, in 2009, a Russian woman threw a teacup at the protective glass, but no damage was done to the glass or the painting. According to the Louvre, the woman was angry for being denied French citizenship, and, according to a police spokesperson in the New York Times, was taken to undergo a psychiatric examination.

Why does this 16th century piece of Italian art seem to be a magnet for this hate? In an interview with NPR, Cammy Brothers, associate professor of art history at Northeastern University, says, “I’m not sure that I feel like there’s anything about the painting itself that elicits this reaction. I think it’s very much the mystique that is created culturally around it.”

Sources:

https://news.yahoo.com/timeline-attacks-mona-lisa-091610207.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

https://apnews.com/article/travel-louvre-museum-fe4c4de7b7285450f4c1a81c5fb5dd48

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/30/1102044111/man-throws-cake-at-mona-lisa-the-louvre