France’s iconic ‘Liberty’ painting vandalised at Louvre
A painting that is the enduring image of the French revolution and adorned the 100-franc note for nearly two decades has been vandalised by a woman who “tagged” the canvas with an indelible black marker pen.
An iconic symbol of the French Revolution was “tagged” late on Thursday in an attack on a national symbol that forced the Louvre’s Lens museum to shut its doors on Friday.
The vandal, a 29-year-old woman, targeted one of France’s best known paintings - “Liberty Leading the People” - painted by Eugène Delacroix in 1830.
The painting shows a bare-breasted female figure bearing aloft the French Tricolor with one hand and a musket in the other.
It is the classic symbol of the French Revolution and was immortalised as the main image on 100-franc bank notes from 1978 to 1995.
According to judicial sources, the woman scrawled “AE911” on the canvas using an indelible black marker pen.
On Friday morning, French media were speculating that the tag could be a reference to the “Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth” group, which believes that the collapse of the New York Twin Towers in 2001 could not have been the result of just the impact from two fuel-laden airliners.
“We won’t know if there is any political significance until police questioning ends,” the museum’s Communications Director Raphäel Wolff told FRANCE 24 on Friday morning.
“She is still under arrest and the state prosecutor is here at the museum investigating this.”
Wolff would also not be drawn on the extent of the damage until it had been thoroughly examined by museum experts.
“Our restoration team is hard at work and we will know how badly Liberty has been damaged later on today,” he said.
Liberty is the showpiece work of art at the Louvre museum's satellite branch in the eastern city of Lens, which opened for the first time on December 4.
-source...fortunately, it looks like the painting's gonna be fine. art wins over truther dickery, huzzah!