On Sunday, climate campaigners battled weekend crowds at Paris’s Louvre Museum to spray canned soup on the renowned “Mona Lisa”.
A video shows two women dumping a red liquid onto the painting before crossing the wooden barrier that separates it from the onlookers.
One of the women takes off her jacket to expose a T-shirt that reads “Riposte Alimentaire,” a French food sustainability advocacy group whose name translates as “Food Response.”
“What is more important?” The second woman addresses the yelling crowd. “Art or healthy sustainable food?”
Museum employees may be seen rushing to conceal the view of the activists and the painting.
The Louvre told NBC News in an emailed statement that the painting, which has been protected by bulletproof glass since 2005, suffered no damage.
The “Salle des Etats” (Room of the States) where the picture is displayed was “evacuated calmly” and closed for 90 minutes for cleaning.
The museum would file a complaint, according to the statement, but it was unclear if this would be to police enforcement or the activist group.
Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” depicts an Italian noblewoman wearing a mysterious smile. It is one of the world’s most famous works of art, bringing up to ten million people to the Louvre each year.
Riposte Alimentaire stated on its website that the French government is breaching its climate obligations and called for the establishment of an equivalent to France’s state-sponsored healthcare system to improve people’s access to healthy food while providing farmers with a reasonable income.
Angry French farmers have been using their tractors to put up roadblocks and hinder traffic around France for days in order to demand better pay for their produce, less red tape, and protection from cheap imports.
Some farmers have vowed to descend on Paris on Monday, blocking the key roads leading to the capital, in the first big domestic issue for new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.
Global protestors have frequently taken to international galleries to raise attention to the global catastrophe by targeting iconic paintings depicting food and paint.
In 2022, an activist smeared cake on the “Mona Lisa” while saying, “Artists tell you: Think of the Earth.” That’s why I did it.
In 2022, activists from “Just Stop Oil,” a group aiming to persuade the UK government against not renewing new oil and gas licenses, spilled soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London.