Awkward moment as tourist snaps off 19th century sculpture’s toes

CCTV footage released by Italian Carabinieri military police shows a tourist posing for a photograph while leaning on a 19th century plaster model of 'Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix' by sculptor Antonio Canova.
CCTV footage released by Italian Carabinieri military police shows a tourist posing for a photograph while leaning on a 19th century plaster model of 'Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix' by sculptor Antonio Canova.
Image: REUTERS/ Carabinieri Treviso

The art of taking museum selfies has landed a tourist in hot water after he decided to pose on the lap of a 19th century sculpture by Italian artist Antonio Canova. 

This incident occurred on July 31 2020, at the Gipsoteca Museum in Possagno, northern Italy.

The topical artwork is the neoclassical sculpture Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix, which is the original plaster cast model made in 1804, according to The Art Newspaper. 

The man has since been identified as an Austrian tourist, who officials say, “sat on the sculpture of Paolina Bonaparte ... then left the museum in a hurry without reporting the incident”.


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