The court in The Hague spoke of a “shocking” act when the verdict was announced, as the Dutch news agency ANP and other media report: after a protest at the famous Vermeer painting The girl with the pearl earring three climate activists in the Netherlands have been sentenced to two months in prison. The three men had glued themselves to the protective pane of the painting on display in the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague last week and spilled tomato sauce on the picture. Although the valuable painting remained intact, the frame and the back of the picture were damaged, it was said at the verdict.
In the past few months, climate activists have organized a whole series of actions and blockades, some of which were aimed at famous works of art. In London’s National Gallery, for example, they showered Vincent van Gogh’s work sunflowers with tomato soup, in Potsdam activists threw mashed potatoes at a work by the impressionist Claude Monet. In August, two activists glued themselves to a work by Lucas Cranach the Elder in the Berlin Picture Gallery and in Dresden to the Sistine Madonna by Raphael.