Museums
Activists damaged frames of Rubens painting
A stone lion in front of the Alte Pinakothek building in Munich. The museum houses one of the most important art collections in the world. photo
© picture alliance / Andreas Gebert/dpa
In several German museums there have been actions by climate activists in the last few days. Now the frame of a Rubens painting in Munich has been damaged.
According to the museum, the historical frame of a Rubens work in the Alte Pinakothek was damaged during an action by climate activists.
“It is not legitimate to damage unique cultural evidence of humanity in order to point out the factual climatic problems,” said the director general of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, Bernhard Maaz, on Monday in Munich.
Two activists from the “Last Generation” movement were reported to have glued themselves to the frame of the 17th-century painting “The Massacre of the Innocents” by Peter Paul Rubens on Friday. Museum employees and police officers could then have used solvents to separate the two men from the historical frame, which was damaged. According to the museum, there was also damage to the wall covering.
The State Painting Collections could not quantify the extent of the damage. “A painting like “The Massacre of the Innocents” and the historic gilded frame are of inestimable cultural and historical value,” said Maaz. Similar actions by climate activists had previously taken place in Berlin, Frankfurt and Dresden.