BREEK – Meisje met de parel van Johannes Vermeer besmeurd in #Mauritshuis. pic.twitter.com/XzAZTOoBv9
— Steven Bakker (@Kolpen) October 27, 2022
The three Belgian protesters who glued themselves to Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) will no longer face jail time, a Dutch appeals court ruled on Monday.
The three activists, part of the campaign group Just Stop Oil Belgium, were originally given two-month jail sentences for their protest, which took place in October 2022 at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. The museum reported the painting had not been damaged and was returned to public view the day after the attack, but that the period frame had suffered some damage.
Given that the trio had already spent 23 days in holding cells leading up to the trial, the court ruled that any additional prison time ‘would have been excessive’, according to CNN. They added that the court did not want to discourage peaceful protest or freedom of expression and that a severe punishment might have a ‘chilling effect’ on others.
The attack on Vermeer’s iconic painting saw one of the demonstrators try to glue his shaved head to the glass protecting the painting, while another poured tomato soup over him and glued his own hand to the wall. A third demonstrator filmed the scene which was widely shared on Twitter/X.
The protest followed a series of attacks on works of art that started in May 2022, in which activists across Europe resolved to glue themselves to or throw liquids on famous masterpieces to raise awareness around the climate emergency. “How do you feel when you see something beautiful and priceless apparently being destroyed before your eyes?” one of the protesters in The Hague was quoted saying in The Guardian. “Do you feel outraged? Good. Where is that feeling when you see the planet being destroyed?”
