Tourists and the Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum, Paris
Tourists and the Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum, Paris. Alamy Stock Photo

Let Her Eat Cake: Bizarre Demonstration Attempted to Deface Mona Lisa

Masterworks
May 31, 2022

On Sunday, May 29th a less than sweet event occurred at the Parisian museum, the Louvre. In an unsuspected turn of events, a museum visitor attempted to vandalize one of the most iconic works of art, the Mona Lisa, resulting in cake being smeared across the most famous smile in the world. 

According to eyewitness reports and videos, the perpetrator was disguised as an old woman dawning a wig and ballcap while also rolling themselves in a wheelchair prior to acting out their attack.

 

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Who tried to deface the Mona Lisa? 

The vandalism act reported was that the male perpetrator, that has not been identified, rose from the wheelchair and lunged toward the 16th-century masterpiece. First attempting to break the glass before finally deciding to smear a piece of cake all over it. Damage to the painting was prevented by a sheet of bulletproof glass installed permanently in front of Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic work. 

 

Why did he try to vandalize the Mona Lisa?

Videos of the attack highlight that the attacker was speaking to visitors in French while being taken by security to explain his reasoning for the attack. 

“There are people destroying the earth,” said the art vandal in french. “Artists come now to tell you to think of the earth, all artists think of the earth, that’s why I did this.” His reasoning was aligned with the concept of climate change, but still left many perplexed by his actions and choice of cake and then followed with throwing rose petals in the viewing gallery.

The whole ordeal took place during a busy afternoon at the museum. The gallery was filled with tourists coming to take a glimpse of the Gioconda, however. This resulted in a plethora of tweets and first-hand accounts of the attack.

Has the Mona Lisa been vandalized before?

Moreover, this is not the first attempt to vandalize the Mona Lisa. The first attempt took place in 1956 when a Bolivian man threw a stone from his pocket at the masterpiece, damaging a small portion of the elbow.

After this attack, the painting was placed in a bulletproof glass enclosure fixed wth 1.52 inch-thick-glass. The glass enclosure has left the painting protected from all recent attacks. In 1974 a woman protested the inaccessibility of the art museum in Tokyo. She tried to cover the work in red paint which was deflected by the glass. In another instance in 2004, a Russian woman that was recently denied dual citizenship in France in a fit of rage threw a teacup purchased in the Lourve gift shop toward the Mona Lisa. 

 

 

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