Mona Lisa smeared with cake by man disguised as old woman in a wheelchair (VIDEOS)
Someone just tried to wipe away the Mona Lisa’s smile.
In a bizarre turn of events for Louvre attendees on Sunday, a man disguised as an old lady in a wheelchair attacked Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece with cake.
According to a video posted by @luke_sundberg_ on Instagram, the man jumped out of the wheelchair and attempted to smash the bulletproof glass protecting the famous painting unsuccessfully.
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He then proceeded to smear cake on the glass and throw rose petals around before being tackled by security.
“I can’t believe we witnessed something historic 🤣 maybe not on the right side of history, however,” reads Luke’s caption.
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The second video in Luke’s post shows the perpetrator shouting to the crowd in French as he’s being escorted out by security. He reveals that the stunt was an act of climate protest.
“There are people who are destroying the Earth… all artists, think about the Earth. That’s why I did this. Think of the planet,” said the man, whose identity is unknown.
According to AFP, the 36-year-old has been arrested and sent to psychiatric care.
More footage posted to Twitter shows museum staff wiping the smeared cake off of the protective glass.
Someone smashed a cake on Mona Lisa… pic.twitter.com/4NpztMCJEG
— Klevis (@klevisl007) May 29, 2022
Thankfully, the Mona Lisa was just rattled, but unharmed by the icing assault.
This isn’t the first time someone has tried to vandalize the 16th-century Renaissance painting. In 1911, the painting was stolen by a Louvre employee, which shot it to international fame.
In fact, the reason why the Mona Lisa was put behind glass was because a young Bolivian man threw a rock at the painting in 1956. The rock damaged Mona Lisa’s left elbow.
In 1974, a disabled woman upset with the museum’s inaccessibility sprayed red paint on the masterpiece while it was on display at the Tokyo National Museum. In 2009, a Russian woman threw a mug at the Mona Lisa because she was denied French citizenship. Thanks to the protective glass, the painting was unharmed after both incidents.
The Louvre has yet to comment on this latest attempt at vandalizing the historic painting.
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