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regular-article-logo Saturday, 27 April 2024

Climate activist glues head to Vermeer painting

Dutch police say three arrests had been made at Dutch museum but provided no details

Reuters Amsterdam Published 28.10.22, 01:31 AM
Representational image.

Representational image. File picture

A climate activist glued his head to the glass covering the world-famous Girl with a Pearl Earring painting at a museum in The Hague on Thursday, though the artwork was not damaged, the staff there said.

A second activist glued their hand to the wall next to the 1665 work by Dutch masterJohannes Vermeer, and an unidentified liquid was thrown, the Mauritshuis museum said.

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An unverified video on social media showed two men near the painting, both wearing “Just Stop Oil” T-shirts.

“The police were notified and three people have been arrested. The condition of the painting was inspected by our restorer. Fortunately, the glass-covered masterwork was not damaged,” the museum said.

The protest came less than two weeks after “Just StopOil” activists threw soup overVincent van Gogh’s painting Sunflowers at London’s National Gallery. That painting was also shielded by glass.

In videos from the Dutch museum on Thursday, one of the men says: “How do you feel when you see something beautiful and priceless being apparently destroyed before your very eyes?”

“That is that same feeling when you see the planet being destroyed,” he adds.

Dutch police said three arrests had been made at a museum but provided no details.

The two men in the video were seen being escorted away by police in more footage.

Earlier, the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum will unite two iconic paintings from Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer early next year — The Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Milkmaid.

In an unprecedented blockbuster exhibit starting in February, the most famous museum in the Netherlands will bring together 27 of the35 known paintings of the 17th-century artist who had the uncanny genius of letting a soothing inner light exude from his canvas.

Nowhere is it more apparent than in the two paintings that have become as quintessential to Dutch art as any work of Vincent van Gogh or Rembrandt.

The musuem said it will be the first time in over a quarter-century that the paintings will be united in the same building.

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