German climate activists throw mashed potatoes at Monet painting worth over $110 million 

Two German protesters threw mashed potatoes at a painting by Claude Monet that was sold for over $110 million on Sunday in protest of climate change. 

A video posted by the Twitter account Last Generation, the group that claimed responsibility for the stunt, shows the two protesters throwing mashed potatoes at the painting and then kneeling in front of it and gluing their hands to the wall below the painting.

We make this #Monet the stage and the public the audience.

If it takes a painting – with #MashedPotatoes or #TomatoSoup thrown at it – to make society remember that the fossil fuel course is killing us all:

Then we'll give you #MashedPotatoes on a painting! pic.twitter.com/HBeZL69QTZ

— Letzte Generation (@AufstandLastGen) October 23, 2022

Police arrested the protesters for property damage and trespassing at the Barberini museum in Postdam, about 20 miles southeast of Berlin. 

An “immediate conservation investigation” found that the 1890 Monet painting titled “Grainstacks” sustained no damage from the stunt because it is protected by a layer of glass, the museum said in a statement on Twitter. 

Am heutigen 23. Oktober wurde Claude Monets Gemälde „Getreideschober” durch zwei Aktivisten der „Letzten Generation” mit Kartoffelbrei beworfen. Da das Bild verglast ist, hat es der umgehenden konservatorischen Untersuchung zufolge keinerlei Schäden davongetragen. pic.twitter.com/Rn8EQsvPBS

— Museum Barberini (@MuseumBarberini) October 23, 2022

The painting will be back on display on Wednesday, the museum added.  

The stunt comes a few weeks after a group of protesters in the U.S. threw what appeared to be tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s painting titled “Sunflowers,” which sold for almost $40 million in 1987 to protest against the country’s cost-of-living crisis. 

Sunday’s protesters referenced the U.K. protest during their speech at the museum: "We are in a climate catastrophe. And all you are afraid of is tomato soup or mashed potatoes on a painting," one of the protesters says in an English translation of the video. 

“While I understand the activists’ urgent concern in the face of the climate catastrophe, I am shocked by the means with which they are trying to lend weight to their demands,” museum director Ortrud Westheider said in a statement.