Activists throw soup at Monet painting in Lyon museum

At a museum in southeast France on Saturday, protestors threw soup at a painting by Monet. This was the most recent action taken by the same campaign organisation that last month staged a similar prank with the Mona Lisa.

The third-largest city in France, the Musee des Beaux-Arts, stated in a communiqué that the attack on Claude Monet’s “Le Printemps” (Spring) happened on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. local time.

The 1872 picture was shielded by glass, but the museum stated that it will nevertheless go through a thorough examination and repair.

The museum claimed that two activists had been arrested and that it would file a vandalism complaint.

Riposte Alimentaire (“Food counterattack”) claimed the attack in a posting on X, with a woman identifying herself 20-year-old Ilona saying “we have to act now before it is too late.”

The same group, which calls for a sustainable supply of healthy food for all, also claimed January’s soup attack on the Louvre museum’s Mona Lisa painting, which was also behind glass.

The two militants who carried out the attack on Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic work were condemned by a Paris court to carry out volunteer work for a charity association.

Riposte Alimentaire calls itself a “French civil resistance movement which aims to spur a radical societal change for the environment and society”.

“We love art,” the movement says, “but future artists will have nothing to paint on a burning planet.”

In a posting on X, Lyon’s mayor, who is from an ecological party, said he “regretted the action” but said that “in the face of climate emergencies, anguish is legitimate. We will respond with determined actions.”

It wasn’t the first time a Monet painting has been targeted by ecologist activists.

In October 2022, protesters from the German branch of Last Generation flung mash at “Les Meules” (The Haystacks) in a museum in Potsdam. It too was protected by glass.

In June 2023, activists in Stockholm smeared red paint and glued their hands to the glass covering of another of the French impressionist’s works, “The Artist’s Garden at Giverny“.