Delacroix Masterpiece Defaced at Louvre Satellite Museum
- February 10, 2013 22:59
One of French Romantic artist Eugene Delacroix's most famous paintings was vandalized at the Louvre museum offshoot in Lens, France, last week.
A 28-year-old woman used a marker to inscribe on the revolutionary "Liberty Leading the People," from 1830. She was quickly overpowered by a museum guard and visitor.
A restorer in Lens said the damage was superficial and could be fixed.
The Louvre is pressing charges against the woman who was taken into police custody.
Over the past few years, a number of such incidents have plagued museums.
In Denver, the recently opened Clyfford Still Museum had a woman who was allegedly drunk punch a 9 1/2-foot-tall by 13-foot-wide painting, called 1957-J-No. 2,, wihich carries a value of $30 million to $40 million.
Last month, a Texas resident who defaced a Pablo Picasso painting at the Menil Collection in June 2012 turned himself in at the border of the U.S. and Mexico where he had been hiding out.
A Russian man who says he improved the value of a multimillion-dollar Mark Rothko painting by marking it up in London's Tate.
