LONDON (Reuters) -Climate change protesters on Friday threw soup over Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Sunflowers” at London’s National Gallery, the Just Stop Oil campaign group said.
A video posted by the group, which has been holding protests for the last two weeks in the British capital, showed two women throwing two tins of Heinz tomato soup over the painting, one of five versions on display in museums and galleries around the world.
“Officers were rapidly on scene at the National Gallery this morning after two Just Stop Oil protesters threw a substance over a painting and then glued themselves to a wall,” police said on Twitter. Both have been arrested for criminal damage & aggravated trespass. Officers are now de-bonding them.”
The gallery had no immediate comment.
Just Stop Oil said the painting, which dates to 1888, has a value of $84.2 million.
The group’s activists have been blocking roads around parliament in the last few days.
Last Sunday, police said that more than 100 people had been arrested after a weekend of protest-related activity by environmental groups.
(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by James Davey and Gareth Jones)
