Twenty-three-year-old Phoebe Plummerová and Anna Hollandová, a year younger, caused almost 10,000 pounds (300,000 crowns) of damage to the frame, according to the prosecutor’s office. Both activists insisted on their innocence, however, the court sentenced Plummer to two years and Holland to twenty months for damaging the frame. According to the judge, the women intended to damage the work, the value of which is “literally incalculable”.
The women came to the gallery in the morning and threw two cans of soup at the painting, which, according to published footage, caused a shocked reaction from other visitors. Then they stuck their hands to the wall and chanted sentences criticizing the use of fossil fuels or the differences in living standards in rich and poor countries.
The police immediately arrested them. The gallery announced on the same day that the painting was not damaged.
The sunflowers in London’s National Gallery are one of five versions of the painting that hang in galleries and museums around the world. Van Gogh created a total of seven sunflower paintings between 1888 and 1889. The artist painted them as decoration for his French house in Arles before visiting his friend, the painter Paul Gaugin.
