14 DAY TRIAL // Over the weekend, a 350-year-old painting signed by artist Paolo Porpora and worth about $1.5 million (€1.3 million) was destroyed by a 12-year-old boy who lost his balance, tripped and punched a hole through it.
The incident happened on Sunday. The painting, then on display as part of the Face of Leonardo: Images of a Genius exhibit organized in Taipei's Huashan 1914 Creative Park, was not protected by a glass window or anything of the kind.
Rather, it was simply leaning against a wall. When the young boy tripped, instinct took over and the 12-year-old boy extended his arm looking for something to break his fall. The painting just happened to be closest thing.
The incident was caught on film, and the video, available below, is now making the rounds. Easy to notice, the boy froze in place for a few good seconds when he realized what he had done.
According to the show's organizers, the painting, an oil on canvas work called “Flowers,” now sports a hole the size of the boy's fist in its bottom right.
Experts hope to restore the damaged painting
The painting is badly damaged, yet art experts hope they will manage to restore it. Since the entire affair was just a mishap, the boy's family will not be made to pay for the restoration work, exhibit organizer Sun Chi-hsuan clarified in an interview.
All the same, there is no way Paolo Porpora's “Flowers” will ever look quite the same as it did before the 12-year-old fell through it. After all, the boy did a pretty good job destroying it.
“The painting’s bottom right is damaged. The boy’s hand made contact with the artwork and left a hole the size of a fist,” the exhibit's organizers said in a statement, as cited by The Guardian.
“All 55 paintings in the venue are authentic pieces and they are very rare and precious. Once these works are damaged, they are permanently damaged,” they went on to add.
