Cake attack on Mona Lisa painting

PBC News:  The protester, a man disguised as an elderly woman in a wheelchair, was escorted from the Louvre and shouted “think of the earth”.

The Mona Lisa has been attacked in a bizarre protest where a man dressed as a wheelchair-bound woman launched cake at the famous painting.

The artwork of Leonardo da Vinci, also known as the Gioconda, was vandalized on Sunday at the Louvre in Paris.

A man “dressed as an old lady” jumped out of a wheelchair and tried to break the bulletproof glass protecting the painting, a witness said.

He then smeared cake on the glass and “threw roses everywhere” before being “handled” by security and removed from the museum, reports Windobi.

The room was packed with onlookers, who captured surprising clips of cleaners wiping cream from the painting.

The man’s identity and motive for the attack are unknown, but when he was escorted out of the room, he yelled “remember the earth”.

“There are people who are destroying the earth, think about it,” he said in French, according to Twitter users.

“All artists say you think of the Earth, all artists think of the Earth, that’s why I did this. Think of the planet.”

It’s not the first time the Mona Lisa has been attacked. In 2009, a Russian woman threw a ceramic cup at the portrait, allegedly frustrated at her failure to obtain French citizenship.

It was the first attack since 1974, when the painting was on display at the Tokyo National Museum and a disabled woman, upset by the museum’s inaccessibility, attempted to spray red paint onto the canvas.

In 1956 the painting was damaged by two attacks: one with acid and another with a stone, which caused a pigmentation spot to break off the photo. Those incidents prompted the Louvre to place bulletproof glass around the Mona Lisa.

Indeed, it was a crime that made her a legend when she was stolen from the walls of the Louvre in August 1911 by Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Peruggia was hired by the museum to create protective display cases for some of its most famous works, including La Gioconda. Hiding in a cupboard in the museum overnight, he simply removed the painting from the wall and walked out of the building with the help of an unwitting plumber.

Almost immediately, the Mona Lisa became a household name.

After a two-year search, Peruggia was found, arrested and sentenced to seven months in prison – reportedly thinking he would be a national hero if he returned the Mona Lisa to Italian soil – and she was restored to the wall of the Louvre. .

Today, the painting is the jewel in the crown of the Louvre, attracting millions of visitors every year.

Created by the Italian Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci between 1503 and 1519, it has become the most famous and replicated painting in the world, immortalized in everything from fashion to pop art, to novels and films, including The Da Vinci Code and Mona Lisa smile