MONET Vandalised in Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Vandalised MONET at Musée d'OrsayJust heard this on French news. Intruders gained entry last night to the famed Muséee d'Orsay Museum in Paris - the art museum that houses one of the world's greatest collection of French Impressionist paintings.
Ironically last night was the annual Nuit Blanche cultural festival - an all-nighter that last year attracted 1.5 million people to the centre of Paris to celebrate art and culture.
The d'Orsay intruders apparently weren't art-lovers or art-thieves. The group were caught on security cameras having a cigarette and a piss and when the alarms went off, one of them punched a hole in MONET's "Le Pont d'Argenteuil".
Paris was not only celebrating things cultural last night but the French Rugby Team's win over The All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup.
The French culture minister, Christine Albanel, described the damage as an attack on "our memory, our patrimony".
Apparently the four inch (10 cm) tear (seen in the photo above) can be repaired.
Here's a Panorama of Musée d'Orsay
MONET vandalised in Paris Museum
Malcolm Lambe
Five art-lovers - four men and a girl, were arrested by French Police yesterday. One has admitted to administering a coup de poing to the Monet. The Culture Minister also came out with the extraordinary statement that the museums security wasn't at fault adding that it wasn't possible to have 100% security. In spite of the fact that the d'Orsay recently stopped chaining its front doors - relying instead on its electronic surveillance. What do you reckon the paintings in the d'Orsay are worth - considering that the Portrait of Dr Gachet sold in 1990 for $82.5 Million? BTW you can buy a knockoff of that one for a couple of hundred bucks. My guess is that every chancer and wannabe art-thief is at this very moment formulating plans for a raid on a Paris Museum to test their security. This mob, for instance, had several minutes start before the security even arrived after the alarm went off. Maybe they scarpered on free Velib bikes.
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And that painting alone must be easily worth $100, 000, 000 plus.
I've decided that to be wise, they had very good reproducers paint all their more expensive paintings and have all the real ones safely stashed away.
Otherwise, it is beyond ludicrous.