Criminal charges filed against the two environmentalists who threw tomatoes at Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers'

MADRID, 15 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The London Metropolitan Police have reported this Saturday that the two environmental activists who on Friday threw tomato soup against Vicent Van Gogh's painting 'The Sunflowers' in the National Gallery in London will be charged with a crime of "criminal damage" to the picture frame.

The two women, aged 20 and 21, will appear before Westminster Magistrate's Court on Saturday. This same court investigates another woman for damaging the poster of the main headquarters of Scotland Yard in London, reports the Sky News chain.

The activists stood in front of the work and threw two cans of tomato soup on top of it, immediately afterwards sticking their hands to the wall. "What is worth more? Art or life?" asked one of them. "Are you more concerned about protecting a painting than the planet?" she said in a video released by the group Just Stop Oil.

The museum has reported that the event took place around 11:00 on Friday (local time) and led to the eviction of the room. The Police explained on Twitter that several agents arrived "quickly" at the scene and proceeded to arrest the two activists who have stained the painting, "for damage and violation of property."

The National Gallery has clarified that "the painting has not been damaged", although not the frame, which has some "minor" damage. The work, painted in 1888, is one of seven representations of sunflowers Van Gogh painted in the late 19th century to decorate his house in Arles before a visit from his friend Paul Gauguin.

The Just Stop Oil campaign has been mobilizing for two weeks with protests around Parliament and other key points in London and it is the second time that works by Van Gogh have been attacked: in June they hit 'Peach Tree in Blossom', from 1989, in the Courtauld Gallery in London. It is also the second action at the National Gallery, after two activists hit John Constable's 'The Hay Wain' in July.

They have also been the target of Horatio McCulloch's 'My Heart is in the Highlands' protests at Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery and a 500-year-old copy of Leonardo Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper' at London's Royal Academy. Last weekend, more than a hundred people were arrested as part of the mobilizations promoted by environmental organizations.