A child damaged a painting worth around $56 million at an art museum in the Netherlands. A young visitor got too close to American artist Mark Rothko’s “Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8” at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. A spokesperson for the museum said that the artwork “sustained superficial damage,” the child leaving “small scratches” in the lower part of the painting. “Conservation expertise has been sought in the Netherlands and abroad. We are currently researching the next steps for the treatment of the painting,” they added. The spokesperson said that they “expect that the work will be able to be shown again in the future.” The museum has not yet released the estimated cost of repair for the piece. This is not the first time a Rothko has been damaged. In 2012 Rothko’s 1958 piece “Black on Maroon” was defaced at the Tate Modern by artist Wlodzimierz Umaniec, who ended up getting sentenced to two years in prison. It took 18 months for the painting to be fully restored. In the past, the Dutch museum has asked visitors to pay the repair costs for works they damage. The museum made a visitor pay for the restoration costs of Wim T. Schippers’ three foot-long carpet of peanut butter titled “Peanut Butter Platform,” after they accidentally stepped on it in 2011.
Read it at BBC
