Tourist Damages Painting in Quest for Jokey Photo

It's the latest entry in the annals of bumbling tourists damaging works of art. A man at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, tore an 18th-century portrait while posing for a photo, reports the Times of London. The incident took place Saturday, when the visitor tried to mimic the pose of Ferdinando de' Medici—subject of a 1712 painting by Anton Domenico Gabbiani—and lost his balance, per CNN. He ended up falling into the painting and ripping the canvas. (An Italian newspaper has an image and video.)

Restorers deemed the damage minor, but the museum is still miffed. "The problem of visitors coming to museums to make memes or take selfies for social media is rampant," said Uffizi director Simone Verde. He promised new restrictions spelling out more clearly where tourists can and can't go. However, a trade union representing museum workers suggests the facility is partly to blame.

It seems the man tripped over a low platform designed to keep viewers a respectable distance away, and the union had raised a warning flag about such platforms previously. "Visitors are looking at the paintings, not at the ground," said a union rep. "Those platforms are unsuitable and too dark." (Another man sat on a delicate chair in a different museum, and it collapsed beneath him.)

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