An individual disguised as an old woman in a wheelchair tried to damage Leonardo Da Vinci's Gioconda painting at the Louvre Museum in Paris this Sunday, then throwing a cake against the armored glass that protects what is probably the work of pictorial art. most famous in history.
The institution refused to evaluate the incident and clarified that it must evaluate it this Monday.
“Think of Earth.
There are people who are destroying the Earth.
Think about it.
The artists tell them: think of the Earth.
That's why I did it," the man yelled as he was stopped by security guards.
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Videos shared on social networks seemed to show a young man with a wig and painted lips who had reached the room where the painting is exhibited in a wheelchair.
Other recordings show him throwing roses in the museum gallery.
The individual has not been identified by authorities.
The painting was undamaged, and the guards wiped the cream off its glass.
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"This is crazy but a man dressed as an old lady has jumped out of a wheelchair and tried to break the bulletproof glass of the
Mona Lisa
. He then proceeded to smear cake on the glass and threw roses everywhere, before from being approached by security," user @lukeXC2002 wrote on Twitter.
The canvas, from the beginning of the 16th century, is one of the main attractions of the Louvre, which recently carried out works in the room where it is exhibited to try to order the crowds of visitors that usually occur in front of the
Mona Lisa
.
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The work has suffered other attacks.
In 1911, a museum employee stole it, an event that increased the international fame of the painting.
The individual managed to get out of the building with the painting on a day when the museum was closed to visitors.
The work was missing for more than two years until in December 1913 the man was arrested after giving the painting to an antique dealer in Florence.
"It was the most famous theft of property in peacetime," noted expert Noah Charmey in an interview with the BBC.
In 1956, the painting was damaged by an acid attack by a vandal.
The same year it was slightly damaged after a Bolivian visitor threw a rock at it.
"I had a stone in my pocket and suddenly the idea came into my head," the man later told French newspaper Le Monde.
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Since then, the work has been protected by glass.
In 1974 it was loaned to Japan and a woman tried to destroy it with red spray.
In 2009, a Russian woman upset at not getting French citizenship threw a ceramic mug at the painting.
The cup was broken, but neither the glass nor the work was damaged.
With information from EFE and The Associated Press