Awkward as tourist snaps off sculpture’s toes

The art of taking museum selfies has landed a tourist in hot water after he posed on the lap of a 19th century sculpture by Italian artist Antonio Canova and broke off its toes.

This incident occurred on July 31, at the Gipsoteca Museum in Possagno, northern Italy.

The topical artwork is the neoclassical sculpture Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix, which is the original plaster cast model made in 1804, according to The Art Newspaper.

The man has since been identified as an Austrian tourist, who officials say “sat on the sculpture of Paolina Bonaparte ... then left the museum in a hurry without reporting the _incident”. —