By: Ken Niu

A man seemingly disguised as an old lady in a wheelchair threw a piece of cake at the Mona Lisa. One video depicts security guards escorting him out of the Louvre Museum on Sunday.

While security escorted the man out, he said, “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.”

Another video showed someone clearing the cake off of the Mona Lisa’s protective glass. The 36-year-old man was detained and sent to a psychiatric unit.

Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa in the early 1500s. It was acquired by King Francis I of France and has been a permanent exhibition at the Louvre Museum since 1797.

This isn’t the first time that the painting has run into trouble. In 1911, the painting “disappeared” from the museum. For more than two years, there were no hints as to where it was until someone tried selling it. A prospective buyer alerted authorities of its location, and the painting was returned. The Louvre Museum states, “So the Mona Lisa was recovered – and her fame was all the greater.”

In the 1950s, a perpetrator damaged the piece with acid. Afterward, a protective glass was placed as a precaution. Another attack was a protest against a policy that declared disabled people couldn’t view the painting. A woman with a disability sprayed red paint onto the glass casing. In 2009, a man angry that the French refused to give him citizenship threw a mug bought at the museum shop.

As you can tell, the Mona Lisa has been kept in good condition and has been an important piece of art since the 1700s.