A few weeks ago there was a thread on Museum-L about schoolgroups
visiting museums and how to control these. The following article from
the Daily Telegraph of London gives some insight in what may (and
most unfortunately does) happen.
Ton Cremers
http://museum-security.org/

Children damaged Matisse paintings
By Bruce Johnston in Rome

TWO paintings by Henri Matisse were removed from a gallery in Rome
yesterday after they were vandalised.
Officials at Rome's Capitoline Museum suspect that the damage was
caused by a child or children among the many school parties attending
the Matisse Exhibition. Two canvases were each punctured four times
with a pen or pencil. A third work, which will remain on show, was
scribbled on.
The damage to the three works, valued together at £35 million, came
to light when a 10-year-old girl asked a guide why one of the
paintings had a hole in it.
Officials quickly agreed that the painting, Woman at Piano and People
Playing Draughts (1924), on loan from the National Gallery in
Washington DC, had been damaged. A check of all 210 works showed that
a portrait of Madame Matisse entitled The Japanese Woman (1901), lent
by a private collector, had three similar holes.
Another entitled Zorah Standing, painted in 1912, and lent by the
Hermitage in St Petersburg, had been marked with a pen. In all of the
cases, the damage was found low down the canvas, suggesting that it
was the work of children.
Although experts say the damage can be repaired without difficulty,
the incident comes as a deep embarrassment to municipal and national
art officials in Italy. It follows shortly after another American
gallery's refusal to lend works for a show in Rome, because of what
it said was inadequate security.
"The damage is immense, even if the works are easily restorable,"
said Eugenio La Rocca, Arts Superintendent for the city of Rome. "The
image of our country has been compromised." Mr La Rocca contested the
schoolchild vandal theory. He said that in damage of this kind there
was always "a precise desire, however contorted".
He did, however, defend security arrangements. "Even the best
security system in the world can't stop a work of art being damaged."
Anna Maria Sommella, director of the museums, said it had been
decided to leave the third picture where it was because the damage
was "irrelevant". To remove it would mean "depriving of the public of
this treasure as well." The other two paintings had been transferred
to a safe place where they would remain until their owners decided
what to do.

Museum Security Network
http://museum-security.org/
http://www.xs4all.nl/~securma/
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