Clumsy tourists can cause all sorts
of inadvertent damage at valuable cultural sites and museums.
Just last Friday, an American tourist visiting the
archaeological site at Pompeii tripped, knocking over a column.
Security guards and Carabinieri police immediately verified
the fact that the accident was just that - simply an accident.
Luckily the column, located in the peristyle of the
Championnet complex, didn't break and wasn't damaged in the
fall, and park archaeologists are now working on getting it
situated back as it was.
However, similar episodes at other high-traffic museums and
cultural sites don't always have such fortunate outcomes.
Following is a selection of the most significant recent cases
of this kind from around the world.
In 2015 in Taipei, Taiwan, a 12-year-old was visiting the
exhibition "The Face of Leonardo: Images of a Genius" when he
tripped and grabbed onto a million-dollar Paolo Porpora painting
from the 17th century to break his fall, punching a hole in the
canvas in the process.
At the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, a 42-year-old tripped
over his shoelaces and broke a Qing dynasty vase into three
pieces, leaving behind damages of more than 500,000 pounds.
A more fortunate case is that of a little girl in the Museum
of Israel in 2015 who broke a Roman vase from the Robert and
Renee Belfer Collection, which already had a small crack.
The museum actually thanked the little girl, because after
restoration work the vase was more beautiful than before.
US businessman Steve Wynn accidentally put his elbow through
his own Picasso painting in 2006, "The Dream", for which he had
paid 48 million dollars.
However, following restoration work, he managed to sell it
for 155 million.
Last year, a visitor to an art gallery in Los Angeles showing
works by Simon Birch was taking a selfie when she caused 200,000
dollars in damage by hitting a column that then created a domino
effect, causing 10 other columns to fall.
The security camera footage capturing the incident went viral
online, and some people even thought it was a publicity stunt
designed to create attention for the exhibition.
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