Famous works of art that people ruined (13 photos)

Thanks to the efforts of environmental activists recently, many museums and galleries have increased their protection of works of art. Now they are reliably protected. However, people throughout history have always gravitated towards vandalism. And it often happens that he is devoid of any idea. Senseless and merciless vandalism. I would like to thank the restorers who are literally saving the heritage of human culture. Let's see what famous works of art were given to people.

"The Little Mermaid", Copenhagen







The unfortunate “Little Mermaid” is a favorite of vandals. Located in an open, unprotected location in the port of Copenhagen, the statue is regularly attacked. What did they do with her? They poured paint and wrote different words, cut off the head and other parts of the body. They even blew it up! This is not to mention the tracks left by birds and natural changes, since the statue was installed in 1913.

But every time “The Little Mermaid” is cleaned, the missing parts are attached and returned back. The city authorities are ready to restore it an infinite number of times, since the local State Museum of Fine Arts stores a plaster cast of the original “Little Mermaid”, with which restorers compare new versions of hands and heads.

“Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan November 16, 1581”, Ilya Repin





The 1885 painting was attacked twice by vandals. In 1913, icon painter Abram Balashov hit the canvas three times with a knife. Because of what happened, the curator of the Tretyakov Gallery of those years, the painter Georgy Khruslov, threw himself under a train. Ilya Repin himself arrived at the gallery to inspect the damage and was sure that the painting was forever damaged, but later actively participated in the restoration.

In 2018, an unknown man hit the painting with a metal fence post, breaking the protective glass, which damaged the painting in three places. The painting was also restored a second time.

Portland Vase



A masterpiece of Roman glassmaking, located in the London Museum, was broken in 1885 by the deranged William Lloyd, after which restorers had to literally assemble the puzzle. Different specialists were involved in gluing the particles together several times, and the vase was finally restored only in 1989. That is, it took more than a hundred years!

"Night Watch", Rembrandt



In 1975, an unemployed history teacher, later declared insane, left long cuts in the painting. The canvas was restored within 4 months, but marks are still visible on it.

"Woman in a Red Chair", Pablo Picasso



In 2012, a man, using a stencil and a can of spray paint, applied an image of a bull with a bullfighter and the inscription “Conquista” to the painting. The vandal claimed he did it out of respect for Picasso, but was still sentenced to two years in prison. The canvas itself was quickly restored.

Venus with a Mirror, Diego Velazquez



In 1914, Venus received seven visible cuts to her back from British suffragette Mary Richardson, who, according to her, wanted to destroy the most beautiful woman in mythology, as authorities arrested her colleague Emmeline Pankhurst - according to Richardson, the most beautiful woman of our time.

The canvas was restored—cuts in paintings can be repaired quite easily by restorers. But acid is a completely different matter.

"Danae", Rembrandt



The painting is in the Hermitage. In the collage, she is before and after Lithuanian Bronius Majgis, later, of course, declared insane, doused her with acid in 1985. It took 12 years to restore the painting.

“Three Figures”, Anna Leporskaya



In 2022, a security guard at the Yeltsin Center in Yekaterinburg, where the painting was exhibited, on his first day of work drew eyes on two of the three figures with a ballpoint pen. He later said that he thought the 1930s piece from the Tretyakov Gallery was a drawing of teenagers looking at the painting and laughing at the fact that the figures had no eyes.

"Sailing Boat at Argenteuil", Claude Manet



In 2012, a certain Andrew Shannon simply hit the painting with his fist (!), causing noticeable damage to it, which was repaired in 18 months. The man received 5 years in prison.

"Pieta", Michelangelo





In 1972, the late fifteenth-century statue was attacked by Australian geologist Laszlo Toth. Shouting “I am Jesus Christ, I am risen from the dead!” the man struck several times with a rock hammer, damaging Madonna's face and breaking off her hand. The Vatican, where the statue is located, even considered the idea of ​​leaving the face with chips to testify to the spiritual flaws of the era, but in the end the sculpture was completely restored. Moreover, the restorers used only the “original” fragments of the Pietà, which were collected around the statue after the incident.