The incident happened on Tuesday afternoon. A manager of the Gallerya contemporary art gallery located in the whole of the Hangar à Bananes, on the island of Nantes, was surprised by a luminous point on a dark part of a painting by Swiss artist Till Rabus entitled The Big Blonde. On closer inspection, it was a hole in the canvas. And a hole of the same diameter was in the wall just behind the painting! The explanation quickly appeared: a worker who worked in the restaurant located on the other side of the wall pierced the partition with a drill.
“Fortunately, it is a small hole, 20 millimeters, not very visible to the naked eye,” explains the Trip to Nantes, which manages the HAB Gallery. “The artist was immediately notified, a bailiff’s report was made and the painting was taken down. The same protocol as in any museum. »
An estimated value of 30,000 euros
The restoration of the oil painting, whose overall size is around 7 m2, will be carried out in the coming days, in agreement with the artist. “The restaurateur is rather confident. It is hoped that the work can be performed before the closing of the exhibition on May 8 “, reports the Voyage to Nantes, whose responsibility is not in question. The market value of tall blonde is estimated at 30,000 euros, according to the VAN.
Open since March 3, the exhibition of the brothers Till and Léopold Rabus presents a hundred “genre scenes, landscapes and still lifes”.