5. Rembrandt’s Night Watch Slashed And Burned
Rembrandt’s ‘The Night Watch’, considered a seminal work by the great master, has equally been the target of attack on numerous occasions with strange individuals intent on the destruction of its beauty. Slashed with a knife on two occasions, and doused with acid on a third; in 1975, William de Rijk, an unemployed school teacher, cut dozens of zigzag lines in the painting with a knife before he was wrestled to the ground by guards. The day before, de Rijk had been turned away from the museum because he arrived after closing time. After the event, he was identified with a mental disorder; and was sent to a psychiatric hospital where he subsequently committed suicide on 21 April 1976. It took six months to restore the painting, and traces of the cuts still remain. In 1990, a man threw acid on the painting. The guards managed to quickly dilute it with water so that it penetrated only the varnish layer, and the painting was restored yet again.