Man Dressed As Elderly Woman Smears Cake On The Mona Lisa At The Louvre

A man dressed as an old woman reportedly smeared cake over the Mona Lisa painting during a visit to the Louvre museum in Paris.

Visitors at the world-famous museum were left stunned and shared videos of the incident Sunday.

Witnesses on social media said the vandal wore a wig and was sitting in a wheelchair as tourists milled inside the room, which is home to the most recognized works of art by artist Leonardo da Vinci.

The man charged out of the wheelchair and stamped the painting with some sort of cream cake, one witness was cited as saying by Marca.

The original painting was luckily unaffected because the cake was smeared on top of the safety glass.

A video shared on social media showed security guards ushering the vandal as he began to shout.

“Think of the earth, artists think of the earth. All artists think of the earth. That's why I did it,” the man yelled, according to one translation, LADbible reported.

“Think of the planet,” he reportedly added.

Millions of tourists flock to the museum every year and crowd around the iconic painting, which was first settled at the Louvre in 1804, according to My Modern Met.

The painting was severely damaged during a previous incident of vandalism in 1956 while it was on display at a museum in Montauban, France. The vandal had doused the painting with acid at the time. Since then, the painting has remained behind safety glass and was protected during other unsuccessful attempts to vandalize it, Reuters reported.

The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 by an Italian handyman named Vincenzo Peruggia, who was hired to make protective glass cases for a set of famous paintings.

Peruggia hid in a closet overnight before removing the painting and hiding it under his clothes, according to CNN. When he discovered that the door was locked, he removed the doorknob but could only get out of the building after a plumber used his key to open the door.

It was only after 24 hours that someone noticed the painting was missing. Peruggia was caught in December 1913, and the Mona Lisa was finally recovered.