Paintings That Were Slashed or Attacked: 12 Famous Cases
Paintings are attacked far more often than they are stolen, and almost never by people who hate art. The Rokeby Venus was slashed by a suffragette in 1914 as a political act, the Night Watch has been damaged three separate times, and the Pieta was hammered by a man who believed he was Christ.
1 | The Rokeby Venus, Diego Velazquez (attacked 1914)
Mary Richardson walked into the National Gallery with a meat cleaver and cut the canvas seven times. She said she was protesting the arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst the previous day.
The picture was restored and hangs there still. More on him in Diego Velazquez.
Two of the works on this list are nudes, which is not a coincidence. That category attracts attention of every kind.
2 | The Night Watch, Rembrandt (attacked 1911, 1975, 1990)
A navy cook cut it in 1911, a man slashed it repeatedly with a bread knife in 1975 leaving long tears, and acid was thrown at it in 1990. Each time it was restored.
The 1975 damage is still faintly readable in raking light. More on him in Rembrandt.
The 1975 cuts went through paint Rembrandt had built up in ridges. The technique is in what is impasto painting. I retrace the theft that did the most damage to a museum in the Mafia and the missing Caravaggio.
3 | The Pieta, Michelangelo (attacked 1972)
Laszlo Toth struck the marble fifteen times with a geologist’s hammer, shouting that he was Jesus Christ. The Virgin lost an arm, part of her nose and an eyelid.
It now sits behind bulletproof glass. More on him in Michelangelo.
Marble carries damage differently from canvas, and the difference is set out in what is a pieta.
4 | The Mona Lisa (attacked 1956 and since)
Acid was thrown at the lower half in 1956, and a rock was thrown at it the same year, chipping the paint near the left elbow. That is why it went behind glass.
Everything thrown at it since has hit the case. More in why the Mona Lisa is so famous.
5 | Rembrandt’s Danae (attacked 1985)
A visitor to the Hermitage threw sulphuric acid over the canvas and cut it twice. Restoration took twelve years, and around a third of the surface was lost.
It is the most damaging attack on this list.
The attacker threw sulphuric acid and then cut the canvas twice with a knife, in June 1985. Restoration at the Hermitage took twelve years and the picture went back on display in 1997, behind armoured glass.
6 | Barnett Newman in Amsterdam (1986 and 1997)
The same man attacked two different Newman canvases eleven years apart at the Stedelijk. He said he objected to what the museum was buying.
One of the restorations was itself judged a failure and had to be reversed.
Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III was slashed in 1986 and Cathedra in 1997, both at the Stedelijk, both by the same man. The first restoration was so heavily criticised that the museum published a book about what went wrong.
7 | The suffragette campaign of 1913 and 1914
The Rokeby Venus was not an isolated act. Suffragettes damaged works in Manchester, Birmingham and London in the same period, choosing pictures of women on purpose.
The tactic ended when the First World War began.
Between 1913 and 1914 suffragettes damaged works in the National Gallery, the Royal Academy and Manchester Art Gallery. Museums responded by banning women carrying muffs or large bags, and some closed entirely.
8 | Poussin and Da Vinci at the National Gallery
Poussin’s Adoration of the Golden Calf was sprayed with red paint in 2011, and a cartoon by Leonardo was shot with a shotgun in 1987.
The cartoon survived because the glass absorbed most of the blast.
The Leonardo cartoon, the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John, was shot through the glass with a sawn off shotgun in 1987. The glass absorbed most of the blast and the damage was to a small area, painstakingly rebuilt.
9 | The soup and the glue
Since 2022 climate protesters have thrown soup, mashed potato and paint at framed and glazed paintings, and glued themselves to frames. In the reported cases the paintings were shielded by glass.
The frames took the damage, which is not nothing. Some are original and irreplaceable.
10 | Michelangelo’s David and the flying bench
In 1991 a man broke the toes of the left foot with a hammer he had hidden. Two hundred years earlier, in 1527, a bench thrown during a riot broke the statue’s left arm into pieces.
The arm fragments were picked up by two teenage boys, one of whom was Giorgio Vasari.
11 | Why museums prefer glass to guards
A guard can look away. Glazing cannot. Most of the celebrated attacks happened before the works were glazed, and almost none after.
The trade off is reflection, which is why curators resisted it for so long.
The Mona Lisa went behind glass after the acid and stone attacks of 1956, and behind bulletproof glass in the 1970s. Almost every celebrated attack in this list happened before the work was glazed.
12 | What the attacks have in common
The target is chosen for its fame, not its subject. An attacker wants the news cycle that only a famous picture can produce, which is why the same handful are hit again and again.
Fame is the vulnerability.
Van Gogh, Vermeer, Velazquez, Rembrandt and Michelangelo appear over and over, and obscure works almost never do. The attacker needs the picture to be famous for the act to mean anything.
Attacked paintings, questions readers ask
Who slashed the Rokeby Venus? Mary Richardson, a suffragette, in the National Gallery in March 1914, using a meat cleaver, in protest at the arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst.
How many times has the Night Watch been damaged? Three recorded attacks: a cut in 1911, repeated knife slashes in 1975, and acid in 1990.
What happened to the Pieta? In 1972 Laszlo Toth struck it around fifteen times with a hammer, breaking the Virgin’s arm and damaging her face. It is now behind glass.
Were the soup protests damaging? In the reported cases the paintings were glazed and survived. Frames, some of them original, were damaged.
Where is The Rokeby Venus today? The National Gallery for the Rokeby Venus, the Rijksmuseum for the Night Watch, Saint Peter’s for the Pieta, the Hermitage for Danae.
When the David lost its arm in 1527, the pieces were collected off the street by two boys. One of them grew up to write the first history of Italian art.
More of these works sit at the National Gallery and the Rijksmuseum.