A famous painting by French artist Eugene Delacroix which was loaned by the Louvre Museum to a new outpost in the northern city of Lens has been vandalized, the museum announced on its Facebook page Friday. The Louvre-Lens said a woman who was visiting the museum Thursday used a marker to scrawl a message on Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People.
The 1830 painting, which depicts a bare-breasted woman leading the French in revolt, occupies pride of place in the museum, which was opened in December at the site of a disused coal mine. The 28-year-old woman was apprehended by a security and another visitor and handed to police, the museum said, adding the damage looked to be "superficial."
The incident is the first to cloud the Louvre's successful first foray outside Paris. Over 200,000 people have visited the new museum since it opened. Its parent museum in the capital received nearly 10 million visitors last year.