Paris museum files complaint against 2 women for painting ‘MeToo’ on 19th-century nude painting | Trending

A top French museum has filed a police complaint after two women spray-painted a famous 19th-century painting Gustave Courbet which it had loaned to another gallery, official said Friday. The 1866 painting on which the two women wrote “Me Too” was on loan from another gallery (representational image). (Unsplash/Mihai Surdu) The women have been charged with spraying the words “MeToo” on “The Origin of the World”, a nude painted French art Courbet, and four other works. Unlock exclusive access to the latest news on India’s general elections, only on the HT App. Download Now! Download Now! The 1866 painting was on loan from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris to the Pompidou-Metz in the northeastern city of Metz. It was protected a glass pane on which the words were scrawled. “Stained with red paint, the work was taken down for examination a qualified restorer. The frame has received numerous splashes of paint that could have lasting marks even after restoration,” the Musee d’Orsay said in a statement, adding that it had “filed a complaint”. The museum said the painting would not return to the Metz exhibition that closes in May. Metz prosecutor Yves Badorc said five works had been sprayed with the words “MeToo” and one was stolen. French-Luxembourg performance art Deborah de Robertis told AFP she organised the operation carried out two other people, as part of a performance titled: “You Don’t Separate the Woman from the Art”. In a video sent to AFP de Robertis, one woman tagged Courbet’s work with red paint and then a second sprays another. They then chant “MeToo” before being dragged away security guards. In an open letter, de Robertis denounced the behaviour of six men in the art world, describing them as “predators” and “censors”. De Robertis said they had also seized an embroidery work French art Annette Messager as “reappropriation”. The prosecutor said a third person — who was not arrested — could have been behind the disappearance of the 1991 Messager work titled “I Think Therefore I Suck”. De Robertis has a work on display at the venue in Metz — a photograph of a 2014 performance at the Musee d’Orsay in which she posed naked underneath Courbet’s painting. A French court in 2020 ordered de Robertis to pay a 2,000-euro ($2,150) fine for appearing naked in 2018 in Lourdes in southwest France, a Catholic pilgrimage site for those who believe the Virgin Mary appeared there. She has also shown herself naked in front of the “Mona Lisa” painting at the Louvre in Paris.