By: Amanda Yang

On Sunday, May 29th, 2022, at the Louvre Museum in Paris, a man dressed as an old lady in a wheelchair threw a piece of cake at the Mona Lisa. Luckily, the Mona Lisa was encased in glass, so it wasn’t ruined. The 36-year-old man was detained and sent to a psychiatric unit.

People who recorded the incident posted it on social media, and the recordings went viral. One video shows security guards taking away the man who threw the cake. Another video shows the aftermath of the incident, where someone wipes the cake off the protective glass.

The man who threw the piece of cake at the Mona Lisa claims he did it in protest for climate change, and as he was being escorted away, he spoke in French about the planet.

“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,” he says, according to The Associated Press.

The original Mona Lisa, which was painted by Leonardo da Vinci, hangs in the Louvre’s largest room, as stated on their website. The painting is of a woman in a half-body portrait.

The Mona Lisa was also stolen in 1911 and then found 2 years later when someone tried to sell it to an Italian art dealer who then reported the stolen painting to authorities. After the Mona Lisa was recovered, its fame grew even greater than it used to be. The protective glass was added in the 1950’s when the Mona Lisa was damaged by an acid attack.