‘Just Stop Oil’ Heads For ‘Girl With A Pearl Earring’ & Glues Scalp To Painting

Three ‘Just Stop Oil’ protestors have been arrested at the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, Netherlands, after attempting to glue one of their heads to Johannes Vermeer’s famed Girl With A Pearl Earring.

Just days ago, a group of activists from the same organization smashed cake into King Charles III’s waxwork at Madame Tussauds in London, and doused Harrod’s Knightsbridge department store in orange paint. 

This time, in a video on social media, two men dressed in ‘Just Stop Oil’ t-shirts walked up to the Vermeer masterpiece before one tried to superglue his shaven head onto the artwork while the other poured a can of tomato soup over him.

BREEK - Meisje met de parel van Johannes Vermeer besmeurd in #Mauritshuis. pic.twitter.com/XzAZTOoBv9

— Steven Bakker (@Kolpen) October 27, 2022

As per a translation by Reuters, one of the men appeared to have been saying: “How do you feel when you see something beautiful and priceless being apparently destroyed before your very eyes? That is that same feeling when you see the planet being destroyed.”

According to The Guardian, much like the other works targeted by the group, the painting was left undamaged, having been protected behind a glass frame. Calling the art pieces “defenseless,” the museum said it “strongly rejects” the protestors’ attempts to ruin the artworks. 

[via The Guardian and Reuters, cover image via Johannes Vermeer / Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)]