The Rome prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the blitz by four members of the Ultima Generazione (Last Generation) movement who threw pea soup at Van Gogh’s The Sower on November 4. There was no damage to the 1888 painting, which was protected by glass and returned to the exhibition at the Palazzo Bonaparte on Sunday after being assessed by experts from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam who were flown to Rome. The moment climate activists in Rome pour vegetable soup over a Van Gogh masterpiece.pic.twitter.com/WKoKlNbwPJ — Wanted in Rome (@wantedinrome) November 4, 2022 The activists now face charges of “destruction, looting, vandalism and illegal use of cultural property”, with penalties ranging from two to five years in prison and fines between 2,500 and 15,000 euros. The soup attack took place around midday last Friday when four women in their twenties entered the museum separately after purchasing entry tickets but not being allowed to bring backpacks or bags due to security measures in place. The activists – one from Rome and the other three from northern Italy – mingled with a group on a tour of the exhibition, state RAI television reported. Once in front of the painting, they took out containers of vegetable soup hidden under their clothes and threw the contents at the painting. Rome motorists react furiously to latest roadblock protest by climate activists today.pic.twitter.com/Z3JsnlDH6I — Wanted in Rome (@wantedinrome) November 2, 2022 The incident was strongly condemned by Italy’s new culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano as well as the country’s far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni who described it as “vandalism, pure and simple”. Ultima Generazione responded to Meloni’s social media post, RAI News reports: “We learn from Facebook that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is deeply angered by a dirty glass in a museum and not by the effects of the climate collapse,” adding: “Ours is not vandalism but the alarm cry of desperate citizens.” The van Gogh soup attack comes amid ongoing road blockades by climate activists during morning rush hour traffic in locations around the Italian capital. In August, climate activists glued their hands to the base of the Laocoön sculpture in the Vatican Museums, and in July they glued themselves to the protective glass covering Botticelli’s Primavera painting in the Uffizi galleries in Florence. No damage was done to either masterpiece.
