At the Louvre Museum in Paris, a crazed young male visitor dressed as an elderly lady in a wheelchair hurled a piece of cake at Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa artwork.
The child got out of his chair and acted out his wrath at what is likely the most well-known work of art, which dated from 1517. “Vandalism” was the term used to describe the attack. The creamy substance, however, was never able to reach its intended destination because the painting was protected by bullet-proof glass.
However, video footage from visitors to the show went viral. As dozens of bystanders videotaped the scene with their cell phones, Louvre museum officials quickly cleaned the area, which was separated from the painting by a black protective tape.
A black wheelchair can be seen abandoned in front of the oil painting in one of the videos published on Twitter, before a museum worker retrieved it. The attack was carried out by a man in a wheelchair wearing a wig who got up to hurl the bisque, according to the person who shared the footage.
The Louvre Museum, whose Twitter avatar features the Mona Lisa, has yet to offer a word on the incident. The perpetrator’s identify has not been revealed.
Over the years, the Mona Lisa has been subjected to a number of attacks. In 1956, there were two of them, one with acid and the other with a stone. When it was on display at the National Museum in Tokyo in 1974, a woman flung a form of crimson spray at it, and in August 2009, a tourist tossed a cup of tea at it.
The painting, which has been in the possession of France since the early 16th century, is guarded by several security mechanisms and kept at a constant temperature to ensure its long-term preservation. Every year, millions of people come to see it.
