Two environmental activists have thrown orange soup at the world’s most famous artwork, the Mona Lisa in the Louvre in Paris.
Footage shows taken on Sunday (28 January) shows two women approaching the Leonardo da Vinci artwork and throwing soup at it. Of course, the painting is protected by a glass window, meaning the soup would not have touched it.
The protestors were wearing shirts with the name of the group Riposte Alimentaire – which translates as ‘Food Response’ – written on the front.
“What’s the most important thing?” the protestors shouted. “Art, or right to healthy and sustainable food?”
“Our farming system is sick, our farmers are dying at work,” they added.
Afterwards, museum staff covered the 16th-century painting with black screens and asked guests to leave the room immediately.
Riposte Alimentaire claims two people, aged 24 and 63, were behind the incident. Paris police confirmed that two people were arrested after the action.
The move by Riposte Alimentaire comes as French farmers protest across the country, calling for an end to rising fuel costs and for simplified regulations.
In a statement posted to X, formerly Twitter, Riposte Alimentaire said the protest was part of a bid to integrate “food into the general social security system” (via BBC).
16th-century painting in the Louvre targeted
The group said the current model for food “stigmatises the most precarious and does not respect our fundamental right to food”.
The Mona Lisa has been targeted before. In May 2022, cake was smeared on the glass by a man disguised as an elderly woman in a wheelchair.
Elsewhere, two climate activists from Just Stop Oil were arrested in October after pouring orange powder on a replica dinosaur skeleton at London’s Natural History Museum.
Environmental protests at cultural institutions in recent years include soup being thrown on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery.
Image courtesy of Riposte Alimentaire
