2023-11-08 15:48:54
Last Monday, two members of the ‘Just Stop Oil’ collective destroyed the protective glass of The Venus of the mirror, by Velázquez, exhibited at the National Gallery in London. Two days later, after examining the work, the art gallery confirmed on its social networks that it suffered “minimal damage” and that, before displaying it again, it will have to undergo “conservation treatment.”
Climate activists break the glass of Velázquez’s ‘Venus in the Mirror’ with hammers in London
The museum has not confirmed when they plan to put the painting back in the room. The room reopened its doors on the same day of the attack, with the Italian oil painting dating from the 17th century a dead soldier occupying the hole in the attacked title.
The two young men, aged 20 and 22, who attacked the painting were arrested. “Our government has revealed its plans to grant more licenses to oil companies, knowing that it would kill millions of people,” the group wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter), “it is time for actions, not words. It’s time to just stop the oil. Politics is failing us. He failed women in 1914 [por las sufragistas] and it is failing us now.”
An update on ‘The Rokeby Venus’:
The painting has been examined by Conservators.
Minimal damage has been sustained to the surface of the painting. Therefore, it will be undergoing conservation treatment before going back on display.
— National Gallery (@NationalGallery) November 8, 2023
It was not the first time that the Sevillian master’s painting suffered damage. In 1914 the suffragette Mary Richardson slashed her seven times with a butcher knife and, since then, she was protected by glass. The activist wanted with her act to avenge the death of the British leader Emmeline Pankhurst. “I have tried to destroy the image of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history,” she said.
The painting was painted in the 17th century. Velázquez depicted the goddess Venus from behind, reflecting herself in a mirror held by Cupid. The oil painting ended up in the United Kingdom during the artistic plundering perpetrated during the Spanish War of Independence, around 1813.
The second attack on the National Gallery
In October 2022, two ‘Just Stop Oil’ activists dumped tomato soup on The sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh, also in the National Gallery in London. Dressed in a T-shirt with the slogan against oil extraction, two young women approached the painting, opened a can and threw the contents at it. Then they glued their hands to the living room wall.
Beyond the United Kingdom, several people were arrested in the Netherlands for throwing tomato sauce near the well-known painting The girl of the pearl, by the artist Johannes Vermeer, in the Mauritshuis museum, in The Hague. In Germany, two people threw mashed potatoes at a painting by Claude Monet displayed in the Barberini Museum in Potsdam, near Berlin. On the same dates, two activists stuck to the frames of The Majas by Goya in the Prado Museum in Madrid.
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