A policewoman stands in front of the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague on October 27, 2022. PHIL NIJHUIS / AFP
The two environmental activists who attacked Johannes Vermeer’s famous painting Girl with a Pearl Earring were sentenced to two months in prison, one of which was suspended, by a Dutch court on Wednesday November 2.
Three men of Belgian nationality, two aged 45 and one aged 42, wearing Just Stop Oil T-shirts, stuck themselves with strong glue to the glass on October 27 at the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, Netherlands protected the work of 1665.
The museum said no damage was found to the painting. However, the court in The Hague acknowledged that the frame and back plate had been damaged and considered the act “shocking” for many people, Dutch news agency ANP reported. “Anyone can imagine the fragility of such a painting and the fact that if it went wrong it would have been lost,” said a judge quoted by the agency.
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The third activist tried on Friday
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The public prosecutor’s office had applied for four months’ imprisonment, two of which were suspended, against the suspect Wouter M. because he had stuck his head on the window. According to the ANP, he claimed to have carefully investigated the dangers of his act.
The public prosecutor’s office had also applied for four months against Pieter G., who had filmed the action, two of which were probation. He denies knowing about the pictures he wanted to take, the ANP reported. The third activist who emptied a can that appeared to contain tomato sauce will face trial on Friday, according to the ANP.
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The action in the Netherlands followed other acts of vandalism in recent weeks. For example, environmental activists threw tomato soup onto the glass plate protecting Van Gogh’s Les Tournesols at the National Gallery in London, and others smeared mashed potatoes onto the glass plate protecting Les Meules, a painting by Claude Monet, in Germany.
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