AED 3 million painting has been vandalised by a bored security guard

A security guard who got bored on his first day at work decided to draw eyes on a valuable modern art painting worth a whopping $1 million (AED 3 million).

The painting that was defaced is the ‘Three Figures’ by Anna Leporskaya at the Yeltsin Centre, located in the city of Yekaterinburg in the Sverdlovsk Oblast region in west-central Russia.

The 60-year-old security guard apparently drew eyes with a ballpoint pen on the faces of two of the three figures in the painting during an exhibition called ‘The World as Non-Objectivity. The Birth of a New Art.’

The guard who was from a private security company has since been fired.

Leporskaya, who was a student of Russian avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich, is having their ‘Three Figures’ painting (1932-1934) worked on by experts in a bid to restore it to its former glory.

Leporskaya, who died in 1982, is known primarily as a master of artistic porcelain. In addition to the Tretyakov Gallery, her works are widely represented in the collection of the Russian Museum.

After the incident, police opened an investigation for vandalism, which comes with a RUB-40,000 (AED1,973) fine and a one-year correctional labour sentence.

The damage to the painting has been estimated at RUB 250,000 (AED12,332).

It is unclear how much the painting is worth, but it was insured with the Alfa insurance company for RUB 74.9 million (AED 3 m).

It has been reported that the company is paying for the restoration.

Source: Agencies