A smashing piece of art
QUESTION Have there been many instances of the viewing public accidentally damaging valuable artworks?
THIS happens more often than you might think. In 2004, a bag of rubbish that was part of a Tate Britain exhibit was thrown away by a cleaner. The bag, filled with discarded paper and cardboard, was part of a work by Gustav Metzger, said to demonstrate the ‘finite existence’ of art.
In 2006, Nick Flynn, a visitor at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, tripped over his shoelaces, fell down a flight of stairs and smashed three Qing Dynasty vases, worth £500,000 (€565,000). Specialist Penny Bendall painstakingly restored the vases.
The same year, hotel magnate Steve Wynn accidentally put his elbow through Le Rêve, a famous Picasso portrait he owned. It was restored and later sold for more than $155million (€129million).
In 2015, a 12-year-old Taiwanese boy lost his footing at an art show in Taipei and tore a hole in a 17th-century Paolo Porpora oil painting, called Flowers, valued at $1.5million.
Art experts are concerned that such incidents are on the rise due to a modern phenomenon – the selfie.
In November 2016, a Brazilian visitor to Lisbon’s National Museum Of Ancient Art tried to take a selfie, but staggered backwards into the sculpture of St Michael, knocking it off its pedestal and smashing it into several pieces.
Months earlier, a man toppled a 126-year-old statue of King Dom Sebastiao in Libson’s Rossio railway while taking a selfie. Also in 2016, Norwegian children found a rock carving on the island of Tro, which they attempted to ‘improve’ by etching into it to make it more visible. They didn’t realise they had just ruined a 5,000-year-old artwork – one of the first depictions of skiing in history. They turned themselves in when the vandalism was reported to the authorities.
A piece of avant-garde art tricked a 91-year-old woman visiting the Neues Museum in Nuremberg into defacing it.
Reading-Work Piece, a 1965 artwork by Arthur Koepcke, included a partially filled-out crossword accompanied with the phrase ‘insert words’.
The elderly lady took this request seriously, found a ballpoint pen and began completing the crossword.
Florence Beith, St Ives, Cornwall. ECCE Homo (Behold The Man) in the Sanctuary of Mercy Church in Borja, Spain, is a fresco painted in 1930 by Elias Garcia Martinez depicting Jesus crowned with thorns.
Aware that its condition was deteriorating, the authorities and artist’s granddaughter was determined to restore it.
However, they discovered an octogenarian parishioner, Dona Cecilia Gimenez, had already attempted to do so. The result was a comically botched repair. On the plus side, it became an internet sensation and thousands of sightseers visited the church to laugh at her handiwork.
Al Ball, Hull. THERE was a notorious incident in the National Gallery of Ireland in 2012 of a Dublin man damaging a Claude Monet painting thought to be worth €10million. However, this was not accidental.
Andrew Shannon, who is in his 50s, was jailed in 2014 for damaging the artwork, entitled Argenteuil Basin With A Single Sail Boat (1874), at the gallery in Clare Street on June 29, 2012.
The trial of Shannon heard that he entered the gallery just before 11am and went to where the painting was on display.
He left and returned a short time later and appeared to fall forward striking the painting.
The point of impact was above eye level and to the left-hand side of the painting.
Shannon said he had been dizzy and had fallen forward.
He had spoken to a number of people at the scene, telling them he had a heart condition.
Judge Martin Nolan imposed a sentence of six years and suspended the final 15 months.
The Monet was put back on display in the National Gallery following a period of restoration.
Amateur antiques dealer Shannon, who had an address Willan’s Way, Ongar, Dublin 17, was later jailed for six months after he was caught with 57 stolen antique books.
Among the books stolen was an extremely rare King James Bible.
John Healy, Dublin 8.
QUESTION Was there once a fad for eating Egyptian mummies?
EATING mummies have a long tradition as a medicinal remedy. Their popularity appears to have stemmed from the belief that only a miracle could have preserved mummies in an almost frighteningly lifelike state for thousands of years.
Egyptian mummies were particularly prized. In 1549, the chaplain to Queen Catherine de Medici of France, along with a group of physicians, plundered tombs around Sakkara in a quest for mummies to use in various medicines.
If an ancient Egyptian mummy was not available, local Arabs would pass off the corpses of executed criminals or those who had died from disease.
The 16th-century French surgeon Ambroise Paré condemned the practice of eating mummies, stating: ‘It causes great pain in their stomachs, gives them evilsmelling breath and brings about serious vomiting.’ William Harvey, Folkestone, Kent.