Climate activists target Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring': Dutch museum

Dutch police arrested three people after climate activists targeted Johannes Vermeer's painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring" at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague on Thursday, police and the museum said.

A video circulating on social media shows two men next to the priceless work of art, both of whom are wearing a t-shirt emblazoned ‘just stop oil’. One appears to have glued his hand to the wall.

The other is shown glueing his head to the glass covering the painting, while the first person tips a can of tomatoes down his neck, to the dismay of other visitors.

The artwork was behind glass and undamaged, the Mauritshuis said in a statement to AFP.

The room where the painting is hanging has been closed to the public. Dutch museum bosses had expressed concern earlier this week about the new trend in climate change activism, which involves throwing food at priceless works of art. 

In May, cake was smeared on the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris and this month Just Stop Oil protesters threw tomato soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the National Gallery in London. A work by Monet was also smeared with mashed potato in Potsdam.

(AFP and Dutch News)