Footage shared by the Just Stop Oil campaign organization showed activists opening two Heinz tins and then throwing their contents over the 1888 masterpiece, before kneeling in front of it and gluing their hands to the wall beneath it.
Two ladies have been charged with criminal damage after demonstrators against climate change splashed tomato soup on Van Gogh’s iconic Sunflowers painting at the National Gallery.
Friday morning, activists opened two Heinz tins and threw their contents over the 1888 masterpiece, before kneeling in front of the masterpiece and gluing their hands to the wall beneath it, as captured on video by the Just Stop Oil campaign group.
The event caused slight damage to the frame, but the artwork, which is protected by glass, was unhurt, according to the gallery.
The picture, estimated to be worth $72.5 million, was later displayed again.
The painting was created in the southern French city of Arles and depicts fifteen sunflowers in a yellow pot against a yellow background.
Two women, ages 21 and 20, will be charged with “criminal damage to the frame of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers artwork” on Saturday, according to the police.
A second protester will be charged with vandalizing the sign in front of the New Scotland Yard police headquarters in central London.
End of June, two climate activists glued themselves to Van Gogh’s 1889 Peach Trees in Blossom, which was on display at the Courtauld Gallery. Sunflowers is the second, more famous, Van Gogh painting that the group has targeted.
In July, two protesters glued themselves to John Constable’s The Hay Wain, which was the second piece from the National Gallery to be targeted by the protest group.
Activists have also attacked My Heart’s In The Highlands by Horatio McCulloch in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and a 500-year-old copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Summer in London’s Royal Collection.
Just Stop Oil has held protests for the past two weeks as part of a “continuous disruption” campaign, which has also seen activists blockade numerous major routes in London.
