A man disguised as an elderly woman in a wheelchair has thrown cake at the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting at the Louvre in Paris. Louvre visitor Luke Sundberg, from the US, saw it all unfold. “The crowd begin gasping and we looked up and some man in a wheelchair [dressed] as an old lady ran up to the painting and started punching it before smearing cake all over it,” the 20-year-old told. The perpetrator, seen wearing a wig and lipstick, urged people to “think of the Earth” while being led from the scene.The incident on Sunday was described by witnesses as being “jaw-dropping”.
Video posted on social media shows security guards at the Louvre Museum escorting the man away, as he spoke in French about the planet. “Think of the Earth! There are people who are destroying the Earth! Think about it. Artists tell you: think of the Earth. That’s why I did this,” he says. Another video showed someone clearing the cake off the glass protecting the Mona Lisa, as onlookers held up their phones to film the incident’s aftermath. A 36-year-old man was detained and sent to a police psychiatric unit, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed on Monday, adding it had started an investigation into the damage of cultural artefacts. The Renaissance painting had glass installed in the 1950s to protect it after an acid attack.
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