Climate Activist Arrested After Gluing His Head to ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’

Three people were arrested after a climate protest was staged in a museum in The Hague on Thursday, which saw one activist attempt to glue his head to the glass covering of “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” the most recent of several such stunts in recent months. Video posted to social media showed two men next to the 350-year-old Johannes Vermeer portrait wearing “Just Stop Oil” shirts, in reference to the climate action group. While one man glued his head to the glass, the other poured a red substance over him—identified in The Atlantic as tomato soup. The second man also later glued his hand to the panel holding the painting. “How do you feel when you see something beautiful and priceless being apparently destroyed before your eyes?” one of the men said, over the cries of disapproval from some onlookers, according to the Associated Press. “Do you feel outrage? Good. That is the feeling when you see the planet being destroyed before our very eyes.” The museum said that conservators had inspected the painting after the act, and that the masterpiece was undamaged.