A gang of intruders has broken into a museum in Paris and inflicted serious damage on a painting by Impressionist artist Claude Monet.
Four or five people were caught on camera breaking into the Musee d'Orsay via a back door early on Sunday.
An alarm sounded but the apparently drunken group fled after punching a 10cm (four inch) hole in the famous painting Le Pont d'Argenteuil.
This is the latest in a number of security incidents at French museums.
French Culture Minister Christine Albanel said that the artwork could be restored but that this was an attack on French heritage.
The museum, on the Left Bank of the Seine in the French capital, houses a major collection of Impressionist works.
Ms Albanel said the gang had tried other doors before succeeding at the back door "even though it had big bolts".
She said: "It's always a heartbreak when an art object that is our memory, our heritage, that we love and that we are proud of is victim of a purely criminal act.
"We know there were four or five people, likely four boys and a girl, who entered around midnight to 0100, broke a door that was, perhaps, fragile." No arrests have so far been made.
Le Pont d'Argenteuil, painted in 1874, is a view of the Seine with a bridge and boats.
The attack occurred on Paris's Nuit Blanche - an annual all-night festival of music and culture.
Several recent incidents have highlighted security problems at French institutes.
In February a performance artist attacked a work by Marcel Duchamp at the Pompidou Centre.
Four paintings were stolen from the Fine Arts museum in Nice in August.
And on Tuesday, a woman goes on trial after leaving lipstick marks on a Cy Twombly work on show in Avignon.
I mean, seriously, I thought museums were very protected, so much so that some joe off the streets could not just walk in after hours and take what they want. It's pretty bad when a bunch of drunks can break in and not get caught. That's pretty pathetic.
If this is such an ongoing problem, why don't they put more security on this stuff? Hire more people, put the work behind glass, a better alarm system....something??
Of course thats just my opinion....I could be wrong. (Dennis Miller)
"You might be the toughest little whacker. . .but in my world, you're about as worrisome as a cloudy day." (Dutch Dooley)
Gangster 1: Hey, you know what I hate?
Gangster 2: What's that?
Gangster 1: French Impressionism in the wake of the Franco-Prussian war!
Gangster 3: Dude, I was just thinking that! Let's go show that Monet guy what we think of plen-air landscape portraits!
Gang (collectively): Yah!
"Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord."
"Judge not, let you be judged yourself."
I live my life highly accordingly to these two quotes, and pray I'm never wronged to the point of forgetting them.
10-08-2007 12:51 AM
