Why Two People Threw Soup at Mona Lisa and List of Masterpieces Targeted by Activists | Explained

Two protesters hurled soup at the bullet-proof glass protecting Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” in Paris on Sunday, demanding the right to “healthy and sustainable food”.

Two women threw red and orange soup onto the glass protecting the smiling lady to gasps from the crowd in the French capital’s Louvre Museum.

The move comes as French farmers have been protesting for days to demand better pay, taxes and regulations.

Why Was Mona Lisa Attacked?

A group called Riposte Alimentaire (“Food counterattack”) claimed responsibility for the stunt. They said the soup throwing marked the “start of a campaign of civil resistance with the clear demand…: social security of sustainable food”.

The soup-throwing event marked the “beginning of a campaign of civil resistance with the clear demand… of the social security of sustainable food,” according to a statement given to AFP.

As per reports, the activists hurling soup at the glass protecting the painting was to call attention to the agriculture industry. The French farmers are moving towards Paris, threatening to choke off major highways and to blockade the capital as they demand better working conditions.

For days, protests have flared across France, European Union’s largest agriculture producing country, with farmers angered by insufficient income, red tape and environmental policies they say undermine their ability to compete with less stringent neighbours.

Masterpieces Targeted by Activists

• Soup for “Sunflowers”: In October 2022, two activists from the Just Stop Oil group emptied cans of tomato soup over the glass protecting Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” in London’s National Gallery. The pair, who complained that art lovers were more concerned with paintings than the planet, were arrested and charged with damaging the frame.
• Mash for Monet: In October 2022, protesters from the German branch of Last Generation flung mash at a Claude Monet, “Les Meules” (The Haystacks), hanging in a museum in Potsdam. It too was protected by glass. In June 2023, activists in Stockholm smeared red paint and glued their hands to the glass covering another of the French impressionist’s works, “The Artist’s Garden at Giverny”, in a Swedish museum.
• Glued to Vermeer: In October 2022, a man in Dutch city of The Hague glued his head to the glass protecting Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring” in the Mauritshuis museum.
• Hands-on with Goya: In November 2022, two Extinction Rebellion activists each glued a hand to the frames of two paintings by Spanish master Francisco Goya in the Prado Museum in Madrid.
• Painting Degas: In April 2023, climate activists attacked a famous Degas wax sculpture — “La petite danseuse de quatorze ans” (Little Dancer, 14 years old) — in a Washington museum, smearing its Plexiglas enclosure with red and black paint.
• Taking a hammer to Velasquez: In November 2023, Just Stop Oil protesters smashed the glass cover of a Diego Velazquez painting, “The Rokeby Venus” at the National Gallery in London with hammers. They said they were inspired by the work of a suffragette who slashed the painting in the early 20th century during a campaign for the right to vote.

Attacks on Mona Lisa

The “Mona Lisa” has been attacked several times before.

A man threw a custard pie at her in May 2022, also saying artists were not focusing enough on “the planet”. Her thick glass casing ensured she came to no harm.

She has been behind glass since a Bolivian man threw a rock at her in December 1956, damaging her left elbow. The glass was made bulletproof in 2005.

In 2009, a woman threw an empty teacup at the painting, which slightly scratched the case.