A man sat on a Svaroski-studded chair while taking pictures, before breaking it and fleeing from the museum in Italy
The incident originally occurred in April at the Palazzo Maffei museum in Verona, Italy. The artwork in question was by artist Nicola Bolla. It was a machine-cut glass chair studded with Svaroski crystals. Also called the “Van Gogh” chair, it was an homage to the 1888 painting of a chair by Vincent van Gogh. The CCTV footage showed a couple, a man and a woman, in the room where the chair was installed on a pedestal. First, the woman pretended to sit on the chair while the man clicked pictures. Then, the man actually sat on the chair, which gave way and broke. After an initial moment of confusion, the couple left the room.
The Palazzo Maffei museum only posted the footage of the incident recently on social media, calling it an ‘irresponsible gesture’. In a separate statement, Vanessa Carlon, director of the museum, said: “Sometimes we lose our brains to take a picture, and we don’t think about the consequences. Of course it was an accident, but these two people left without speaking to us—that isn’t an accident. This is a nightmare for any museum.”
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While local authorities were notified, the couple reportedly remained unidentified so far. The chair has since been repaired and is back on display. The museum did not reveal the value of the chair, nor how much it cost to repair it.
