One of René Magritte’s most famous works, The Castle of the Pyrenees (1959) housed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, has been damaged by a child who pierced the Surrealist canvas with a pinecone.
According to the Times of Israel, the young boy, who visited the museum several weeks ago with his family, found the cone in the museum garden. He subsequently approached the Magritte canvas, puncturing the piece. The museum was contacted for comment about how long the work will be off display.
“We’re experienced in conserving paintings and objects that arrive in poor condition, including works that have been stored since the Holocaust period,” Sharon Tager, the museum’s head of conservation, told the publication Haaretz. The conservation process on the Magritte painting will involve treating the layers of paint and mending the canvas, said Tager.
The Magritte painting, depicting an enormous boulder crowned with a castle floating above a choppy sea, has a colourful history. In the 1950s, the lawyer Harry Torczyne had a window facing an ugly building in his New York office and decided the best way to mask the offensive view would be to ask one of his clients to paint something to cover it. The client was Magritte and the painting that emerged from this odd request was The Castle of the Pyrenees.
It seems invigilators and museum guards may need to keep a closer eye on young visitors. Early last year a painting by Mark Rothko, housed at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, was damaged by a child who made “small scratches” on the work. The incident occurred while Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 (1960) was on display in the Depot, a publicly accessible storage facility located beside the main museum.
