A guy dressed as an elderly woman in a wheelchair hurled a cake at the famed Mona Lisa painting by Leonardo da Vinci, which is on display at the Louvre in Paris. The picture, however, remained undamaged due to the protective glass that encased it.
Witness evidence showed that the offender was a guy in a wheelchair wearing a large wig, according to the Spanish daily Marca. To everyone’s surprise, he abruptly jumped up and attempted to destroy the Mona Lisa’s bulletproof glass before smearing cake on the glass.
Even as the crowd continued to photograph the event, the museum’s security officers raced to evict the man from the area shortly after the incident.
As shown in the viral footage, museum employees were seen removing the assailant and cleaning the tarnished glass.
The Mona Lisa, an Italian Renaissance half-length portrait painting by Leonardo da Vinci, is regarded as the quintessential masterpiece. It is housed in the Louvre’s largest room, the Salle des États, which also houses other notable Venetian paintings such as Veronese’s The Wedding Feast at Cana. It is described as “the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world.”
Several attempts to steal or destroy the picture have been tried throughout the years. An employee stole it from the museum in 1911, and Bolivian Ugo Ungaza Villegas hurled a rock at it while it was on exhibit in 1956. In the years that followed, numerous more occurrences occurred. The subject’s hidden identity, her intriguing look, and the painter’s unmatched painting methods draw thousands of visitors each year.
