The Worst Accidents That Have Taken Place in Museums and Galleries

These art mishaps have resulted in thousands of dollars in damage.

Aug 19, 2014
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Admit it, we've all been there, visiting our favorite museum and fighting the overwhelming urge to "accidentally" touch the canvas while pointing out a particularly skilled brushstroke. There's just something about being in the presence of a work of art that's worth more than what most of us will earn in a lifetime that really gets the blood flowing. It also doesn't help that the only thing that's usually standing between you and a priceless work is the aloof security guard 10 feet away. Combine all those variables with general human clumsiness and of course stupidity, and the possibility of a few museum catastrophes is certain. Find out what happened when these museum-goers get too close for comfort with The Worst Accidents That Have Taken Place in Museums and Galleries.

Do Not Touch…or Eat

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Location: Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

Year: 1989

In a 1989 solo-exhibition at the Paula Cooper Gallery, Robert Gober's sculpture Bag of Doughnuts fell prey to Ed Brzezinski's drunken hunger during the exhibition’s reception. But hey, can you blame him? Who leaves a bag of doughnuts around a gallery full of slightly inebriated art lovers?

Taken Out With the Garbage

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Location: Sotheby's Auction House, London

Year: 2000

This is a case of human error at its finest. Porters at Sotheby's Auction House in London mistook a wooden crate containing Lucien Freud's paintings as empty, sending them straight to the dumpster. Worth around $157,000 these paintings were probably incinerated shorty after but we're hoping they're hiding beneath mountains of trash waiting to be discovered.

Art or Trash?

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Location: Eyestorm Gallery, London

Year: 2001

Emmanuel Asare, a cleaner at the Eyestorm Gallery in London, made the innocent mistake of throwing away what he considered trash. It turns out what his mistook as garbage was part of an installation by Damien Hirst. The piece was comprised of empty beer bottles and overflowing ash trays, so it's easy to understand Asare's mistake.

Rubbish Art

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Location: Tate Britain, London

Year: 2004

Gustav Metzger's 2004 installation was a recreation of his 1960 work First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art at the Tate Britain. The work of art, which ironically included a trash bag, was mistaken as literal trash and thrown away by a cleaning person. Lucky for us, Metzger was able to replace it with—you guessed it—more trash.

Qing Dynasty Disaster

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Location: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK

Year: 2006



Nick Flynn paid a visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, UK on Jan. 25, 2006. Unbeknownst to him, this visit would end in the demise of three Qing Dynasty vases valued at a collective $700,000. A loose shoestring and a set of steps were the culprits behind the unfortunate spill. Luckily, the vases were repaired with in months. You can even watch the restoration here.



Venus and Vomit

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Location: Tate Britain, London

Year: 2007

Carl Andre's Venus Forge, a work comprised of several steel and cooper plates, fell victim to a nauseous child. The 2007 incident left a portion of the plates covered in vomit. What a horrible day to be a conservationist.

Crash Landing For a Totem

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Location: Royal Academy of Arts, London

Year: 2008

Today’s museum visitors are fortunate enough to live in a world where the space between viewer and exhibition is almost completely dissolved. Unfortunately, a patron of the London’s Royal Academy of Arts got a little too close for comfort when she inadvertently amended Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez's Five Frauleins to four. With one misstep, the visitor toppled over one of the invaluable totems, which was then carried away in a dustpan.

Missing Pinky

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Location: Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence, Italy

Year: 2013

An unspecified statue by sculptor Giovanni d'Ambrogio suffered a terrible fate when a visitor to the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Italy accidentally took off the statue’s pinky. The mystery museumgoer snapped the digit while attempting to take its measurements. Lucky enough, the pinky did not belong to the original statue and was in fact a previous repair. Aside from the condemnation by fellow museum patrons, the visitor also faced a hefty fine his clumsy act.

The Actor vs. the Art Lover

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Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Year: 2014

What started as a typical day at the Met took a turn for the worst when a less than graceful museumgoer stumbled into Picasso's Rose Period work, The Actor. Luckily the woman left unscathed. The painting, on the other hand, sustained a six-inch tear on the lower portion of the canvas. While that might seem minor, keep in mind that the painting is worth upwards of $100 million.

Selfies Gone Wrong

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Location: Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Italy

Year: 2014

Selfie lovers will go to the ends of the Earth to capture the perfect self-portrait. One museumgoer, however, took his passion for photography step too far, culminating in the destruction of a priceless statue held at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brera. In an attempt to capture that perfect #artselfie, the student destroyed the ancient sculpture known as The Drunken Satyr, breaking off its leg and disturbing the figure's drunken stupor.

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