Florence gallery says portrait broken by customer taking a selfie

A 18th-century oil portray has been broken after a museum customer tripped whereas taking a selfie.

Florence’s Uffizi Gallery stated a vacationer fell backwards whereas attempting to “make a meme in entrance” of a portrait of Ferdinando de’ Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, by Anton Domenico Gabbiani.

The museum defined the harm might be repaired rapidly however director Simone Verde warned restrictions on customer behaviour might be imposed sooner or later.

He stated in an announcement: “The issue of holiday makers coming to museums to make memes or take selfies for social media is rampant.

“We’ll set very exact limits, stopping behaviour that isn’t appropriate with the sense of our establishments and respect for cultural heritage,” he added.

The portrait was on show as a part of an exhibition referred to as Florence and Europe: Arts of the Eighteenth Century on the Uffizi.

The exhibition, which was made up of about 150 artwork works, is now closed till 2 July following the incident. The portray shall be repaired within the interim so it’s prepared to return on show.

The exhibition will then run, as initially deliberate, till 28 November.

Earlier this 12 months at Palazzo Maffei, in Verona, a person seemingly slipped and fell on to a bejewelled chair by Italian artist Nicola Bolla.

He had been taking images with a girl, pretending to sit down on the chair.

Museum director Vanessa Carlon stated: “Generally we lose our brains to take an image, and we do not take into consideration the results.

“In fact it was an accident, however these two folks left with out talking to us – that is not an accident.”