Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was smeared with cake on Sunday, 29 May, by a man disguised as a wheelchair-bound elderly woman at the Louvre art museum in Paris.
However, there was no damage to the painting because of the bulletproof glass protecting it.
According to Sky News, the man threw a cake at the painting while he attempted to shatter the protective glass.
A video of the incident went viral on social media in which the man can be seen being escorted by security officials while he shouts in Italian: "There are people trying to destroy the planet. Think of the Earth, just think about it."
Many witnesses took to Twitter to share that the man proceeded to throw roses around the painting before being tackled by museum security. The museum security rushed to stop and remove the man from the museum, while guests recorded the aftermath of the situation on their phones.
Not the First Attack
The 77*53 centimeter canvas has seen several attempts to steal, deface, or use La Gioconda to raise awareness for a plethora of causes throughout its history.
In the 1950s, someone threw sulphuric acid at the Mona Lisa, damaging the lower sections of the painting. In December 1956, Ugo Ungaza Villegas, a Bolivian, hurled a rock at the infamous painting, chipping a spec of paint.
Villegas’ vandalism pointed out the lack of strength in the existing glass case protecting the Mona Lisa. The stone broke through the glass to damage its left elbow, which was subsequently painted over.
In 1976, while La Gioconda was on loan to the Tokyo National Museum, a person with disabilities sprayed red paint on the case in an attempt to protest an ableist policy refusing persons of disability from viewing the painting.
A Russian tourist threw a cup of tea at it in the summer of 2009. The work was stolen over a century ago, in 1911, and went missing for nearly three years.
The painting was stolen by a Louvre handyman, Vincenzo Peruggia, who helped construct the painting's glass case. He carried out the theft after hiding in the broom closet post closing time, and walked out with the painting under his coat.
Peruggia, an Italian patriot, believed that Da Vinci's painting should return to an Italian museum. However, after keeping the Mona Lisa in his apartment for almost two years, an impatient Peruggia was caught during his attempt to sell the painting to the director of the Uffizi Gallery, Giovanni Poggi, in Florence.
The painting was exhibited in the Uffuzi Gallery for over two weeks before its return to the Louvre in January 1914.
In August 2009, a Russian woman threw a ceramic teacup from the Louvre, shattering against the glass enclosure after she was denied French citizenship.
(With inputs from Sky News.)
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