Both the Dallas Museum of art and an alleged vandal had a very bad Wednesday evening last night. Dallas police have said that a young man of 21 allegedly went up to the glass doors of the Museum, smashed his way in using a metal chair, and then began breaking display cases and their contents. And the damage was considerable.
One of the smashed objects was this amphora, and according to the DMA website, it dates to the 6th Century and depicts a battle between Achilles and Prince Memnon of Ethiopia.
Another smashed object was this lovely more recent effigy bottle depicting an Alligator Gar by the artist Chase Kahwinhut Earles.
Details released by police about the incident seem to indicate the perpetrator was just really frustrated after an argument with his girlfriend. Motion sensors inside the Museum alerted security to the intruder, but he apparently also called the police himself.
In a statement the DMA noted “This was an isolated incident perpetrated by one individual acting alone, whose intent was not theft of art or any objects on view . . . However, some works of art were damaged and we are still in the process of assessing the extent of the damages.”
So hopefully then enough fragments were recovered that these pieces may be put back together again. And if so, who knows, maybe the cool Alligator gar effigy bottle will become world famous, like the Mona Lisa, which suffered an attack from an attention-seeker last week. Remember, it was the theft of that painting in 1911 by artist Vincenczo Peruggia which first sent that work into art stardom.
Tommy Cummings, $5 Million of Ancient Art Destroyed at DMA in Overnight Break-In, The Dallas Morning News, https://www.dallasnews.com/arts-entertainment/visual-arts/2022/06/02/5-million-of-ancient-art-destroyed-at-dma-in-overnight-break-in/ [https://perma.cc/H3TD-NEWT] (last visited Jun. 2, 2022).
