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Source: Peter Byrne – PA Images / Getty

This past Sunday was Mother’s Day in France. So one gutsy Frenchman visited the country’s famous Louvre Museum and celebrated the occasion by smearing one of its most prized possessions with a slice of cake. According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, a 36-year-old man gained entry posing as an old woman in a wheelchair, and he surprised everyone around him when he sprung up and smashed pastry on the Mona Lisa. He then tried to throw a rose in the air to cap off his moment of brazenness.

Many in attendance snapped photos of the cake-smeared painting, and the yet-unnamed individual was quickly escorted from the venue by security. As he left, he shouted out the following statement in French: “There are people who are destroying the Earth… All artists, think about the Earth. That’s why I did this. Think of the planet.”

The protester is now said to be held at a police psychiatric unit for observation. The Paris prosecutor’s office has also begun investigating the attempted destruction of cultural heritage. Thankfully, the 519-year-old painting is protected by a layer of bulletproof glass. The specific measure was taken after a pair of attacks in 1956 when one vandal poured acid on the Mona Lisa, and another person tried to damage it with a rock.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s iconic artwork has been subject to various attacks and attempts at theft well before that, however. In 1911, Italian museum worker Vincenzo Peruggia executed “the greatest art theft of the 20th Century” by taking the 30 in. × 21 in. painting for himself and escaping to Florence, Italy. The Mona Lisa was well known prior to the event, but the international uproar around this specific heist is what catapulted it to legendary status.

And in 2009, a Russian woman hurled a ceramic cup at the Mona Lisa. She was allegedly furious at the time about her difficulty with obtaining French citizenship. However, per reports, there wasn’t a single scratch on the painting, thanks to the glass. In fact, the woman was arrested without much incident, and the exhibit wasn’t even closed.

Author/fashion designer June Ambrose happened to be at the museum when it all went down, too. Look at her Instagram post below for pics and the audience’s shock.