In a climate protest last week, two Belgian activists vandalised the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring artwork by Johannes Vermeer. According to the prosecution, their actions “broke a line” of appropriate protest.
A judge in The Hague postponed half of the sentence, so the guys will serve one month. Later this week, a third suspect is expected in court. In accordance with Dutch privacy laws, their identities were not disclosed.
In order to protect a 17th-century masterpiece at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, one man glued his head to the glass, and another covered his head with a can of thickened tomato soup.
The second man then adhered his hand to the wall adjacent to the painting while wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Just Stop Oil.”
A third man recorded the demonstration on camera.
The protest, according to the prosecution, resulted in additional minor damage and required the replacement of the glass that covered the painting, which was not harmed.
A day later, the painting was put back on the wall.
Only approximately three dozen of Vermeer’s paintings have survived and are on exhibit in museums and galleries around the world. He was not a prolific artist and took his time with each piece.
The activists’ “objective, however essential you deem it, does not justify the means,” according to prosecutors in The Hague.
Four-month penalties were sought by the prosecutors in order to convey a message that “Paintings are shown in museums for aesthetic purposes only, not political protest. You refrain from touching them “.
A Claude Monet picture at a German museum was attacked with mashed potatoes earlier this month, while a similar protest took place in London, where protesters dumped soup over a painting of sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh in the National Gallery.
The artworks in those two instances were undamaged.
A month in jail for climate campaigners’ Vermeer protest
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