LEX VAN LIESHOUT / AFP
Visitors view Johannes Vermeer’s painting Girl with a Pearl Earring at the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, the Netherlands, October 27, 2022.
NETHERLANDS – Two environmental activists were sentenced this Wednesday, November 2, to two months in prison, one of which was suspended, for painting “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” a famous painting by Johannes Vermeer on display in the Netherlands is attacked, Dutch media reported.
Three men of Belgian nationality, two aged 45 and one aged 42, had last week stuck themselves with strong glue to the glass protecting the 1665 work in the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, after other acts of vandalism were committed elsewhere Europe.
🔴🇳🇱 NEWS ALARM – A new masterpiece was attacked less than an hour ago at the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague,… https://t.co/sJcKs06E3j
— 🌐The Globe (@TheGlobe_info)
The museum said no damage was found to the painting. However, the court in The Hague conceded that the frame and backplate were damaged and deemed the act “shocking” for many people, Dutch news agency ANP reported.
“Anyone can imagine the fragility of such a painting and the fact that if it went wrong it would have been lost,” said a judge, quoted by the ANP.
A third activist tried it on Friday
The public prosecutor’s office had applied for four months’ imprisonment, two of which were suspended, against the suspect Wouter M. because he had stuck his head on the window. According to the ANP, he claimed to have carefully investigated the dangers of his act.
The public prosecutor’s office had also applied for four months against the second suspect, Pieter G., who had filmed the action, two of which were probation. He denies knowing about the pictures he wanted to take, the ANP reported.
The third activist who emptied a can that appeared to contain tomato sauce will face trial on Friday, according to the ANP.
The action in the Netherlands followed other acts of vandalism in recent weeks.
For example, environmental activists threw tomato soup on the glass panel protecting Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London, and others smeared mashed potatoes on the glass panel protecting Les Meules, a painting by Claude Monet, in Germany.
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