German protesters arrested after throwing mashed potatoes at Monet painting that sold for $110 million - NBC News

Police arrested a brace of German protesters who, successful a bid to bring attraction to the perils of clime change, threw mashed potatoes Sunday astatine a Claude Monet coating that erstwhile sold for much than $110 million.

Authorities said they are investigating the protesters, whom constabulary did not name, for spot harm and trespassing aft the incidental astatine the Barberini Museum successful Potsdam, the superior of the authorities of Brandenburg, astir 20 miles southeast of Berlin.

An "immediate conservation investigation" recovered that "Grainstacks," which Monet painted successful 1890 and which sold for $110.7 million astatine a 2019 auction, sustained nary harm from the stunt, arsenic it lies down a furniture of protective glass, the depository said successful a connection connected Twitter. The coating volition beryllium backmost connected show by Wednesday, the depository added.

A Brandenburg constabulary spokesperson did not instantly respond to a question astir wherefore the protesters were being investigated for spot harm fixed that the coating was unharmed.

Video posted to the Twitter relationship of the Last Generation, the German clime radical that claimed responsibility, shows 2 protesters hurling mashed potatoes astatine the coating and past kneeling successful beforehand of it and seeming to glue their hands to the wall.

The stunt was akin to 1 this month astatine London's National Gallery, wherever 2 protesters from the U.K. radical Just Stop Oil threw what appeared to beryllium herb crockery astatine Vincent van Gogh's coating “Sunflowers,” which sold for astir $40 cardinal successful 1987, to protestation the country's cost-of-living crisis. That coating was besides down protective solid and unharmed, according to the museum.

On Sunday, the German activists referred to the U.K. protestation arsenic they carried retired their own.

"We are successful a clime catastrophe. And each you are acrophobic of is herb crockery oregon mashed potatoes connected a painting," 1 of the protesters says, according to an English-subtitled mentation of the video.

"This coating is not going to beryllium worthy thing if we person to combat implicit food," the protester adds.

A report released this year by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel connected Climate Change warned that urgent enactment is needed "to unafraid a livable future" successful the look of clime change, which is already worsening nutrient and h2o insecurity, and upwind events similar vigor waves, droughts and floods, according to the report.

The Last Generation tweeted retired a video of the incidental Sunday with the caption: "We marque this #Monet the signifier and the nationalist the audience. If it takes a coating — with #MashedPotatoes oregon #TomatoSoup thrown astatine it — to marque nine retrieve that the fossil substance people is sidesplitting america all: Then we’ll springiness you #MashedPotatoes connected a painting!"

Ortrud Westheider, the museum's director, said successful a connection that portion she empathized with the protesters' concerns, "I americium shocked by the means with which they are trying to lend value to their demands."

"It is successful the works of the Impressionists that we spot the aggravated creator engagement with nature," Westheider added, referring to the 19th period creation question that Monet's works are portion of.

"Grainstacks" is 1 of a bid of 25 paintings successful which Monet depicted the atom stacks successful fields adjacent his location successful Giverny, France, coating them successful antithetic airy and upwind conditions, according to the museum.

Born successful 1840, Monet was the starring French Impressionist scenery painter, according to the National Gallery.