Attacks on works of art continue. After the Sunflowers by Van Gogh, Millstones by Claude Monet was the target on Sunday of environmental activists who threw mashed potatoes at the painting, exhibited in a German museum. The work was protected by glass, the museum said, adding that, according to experts, it had not suffered any damage. Millstones will be visible again from Wednesday.
“If it takes a board – on which we have thrown mashed potatoes or tomato soup – to make society remember that the race for fossil fuels is killing us all: Then we will give you mashed potatoes on a painting ! “, claimed the environmental activists of Last Generation, by broadcasting a video of the act.
Activists arrested by police
Millstones is in the Barberini Museum in Potsdam, and is part of the collection of billionaire Hasso Plattner. The painting, bought at auction in 2019 for $111 million – a record for a Monet – is on permanent loan to the museum.
Dressed in black with orange vests, the two activists threw mashed potatoes on the board, before striking the same pose as those who had done the same with tomato soup on October 14 on the Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London: kneeling, back to the work, one hand glued to the wall. “Do you have to throw mashed potatoes at a board to make you listen? This painting will no longer be worth anything if we have to fight to find something to eat,” said one of the two activists. The two young people were arrested by the police.