Damage to a child worth up to EUR 50 million in the Netherlands

The child has damaged a picture worth millions of pounds by American artist Mark Rothko at a Museum in Rotterdam.

A spokesman for the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum said he was considering the “next steps” about the treatment of Rothko's gray, orange on Maroon, No. 8.

The damage occurred during a “unprotected moment,” a spokesman for the museum told the Dutch media outlet Algemeen Dagblad (AD) last week.

A museum spokesman told the BBC that the damage is “superficial”, adding: “Small scratches are visible in the unpaid coat of paint at the bottom of the picture.”

The abstract picture is estimated at up to EUR 50 million (£ 42.5 million), according to the newspaper advertisement.

“The protection expertise is sought in the Netherlands and abroad. We are currently investigating the next steps to treat the picture,” the museum spokesman told the BBC.

“We expect the work to be shown again in the future,” they added.

Sophie McAlone, a conservation manager at the Fine Art Restoration Company, said that “modern unfavorable” paintings such as the gray of Rothko, Orange of Maroon, No. 8, are “particularly susceptible to damage”.

This is due to a combination of their complex modern materials, the lack of a traditional cover layer and the intensity of flat colored fields, which make even the smallest areas of damage, immediately receptive, “she said.

“In this case, scratching the upper layers of paint can have a significant impact on the experience of watching the piece,” said Macalun.

Rothko's painting was hanging in the museum depot – a publicly available storage facility to the main museum – as part of an exhibition showing a selection of Public Favors from the gallery collection.

Johnny Helm, a marketing manager at the Plowden & Smith art service, said the incident has consequences for the UK institutions such as V&A East and the British Museum, who are considering “opening up things that would otherwise be obscured in archives.”

“How will this event affect other institutions in the UK that open their archives in the same way?” said G -n Helm.

Rotko's recovery is a difficult task, as “the mixture of pigments and resins and Rothko adhesives was quite complicated,” said Helm.

He said the fact that the picture did not repeat – which means it was “open to the environment” – would be an additional challenge for the conservatives.

Conservatives working to recover the picture will probably be in the process of documenting the degree of damage and researching the “historical successful treatments” of Rothko's paintings.

“Rotko works seem to have a terrible luck – this is not the first damaged rot we have heard of,” said Helm.

Rothko's work from 1958, Black on Maroon, was deliberately vandalized from WLODZIMIERZ contract At the Tate Modern London Gallery in October 2012.

Utanyak was sent to prison for two years and subsequently apologized for his actions.

During his trial, the pursuit of lawyer Gregor McKinley said the cost of repairing the work would be about £ 200,000. Conservatives took 18 months to repair the picture.

Rachel Myrtle, the head of Special and Fine Arts at AON, a company that offers insurance mediation to its clients, said that fine art insurance policies usually cover “all risks related to physical losses and damage to works of art.”

This includes “random damage caused by children or visitors, though with certain exceptions,” she said.

She said that when a work of art is damaged, the gallery insurer will appoint a specialized concealer for the loss of fine art to visit the museum.

The loss regulator usually “inspects the damage to the work of art, examines all CCTV staff to determine the exact cause of the loss and evaluates conservation options,” said Myrtle.

The museum does not comment on who will be responsible for the damage from the 1960 painting, which the gallery purchased in the 70s.

The Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum has previously charged visitors who have caused damage to works of art.

In 2011, the museum asked an unsuspecting tourist who stepped on the floor of the WIM T. Peanut Oil floor, called Pindakaasvloer to pay for the work to be repaired.

Sharon Cohen, a spokesman for the museum at that time, has been quoted by advertising as he says: “It is a normal procedure for people to pay if they damage the art.”

Rothko's picture is described by the museum as an example of coloring of colored fields, a term used to describe art, characterized by large blocks of flat, dense color, spread on canvas.

The gray of Rothko, Orange of Maroon, No. 8, is one of several works of contemporary art that have been damaged in the Netherlands in recent years.

In November 2024, numerous prints on the screen of American pop artist Andy Warhol were damaged by thieves during an attempt to rob the MPV Art Gallery in Oisterwijk.

In another incident, Dutch City Hall admitted that “most likely” is located of 46 works of art – including the printing of Andy Warhol of the former Dutch Queen – during repair work last year.

Museums have different policies when they respond to damage caused by children.

Last August, A four-year-old boy accidentally broke a 3500-year-old jar to pieces at the Hecht Museum in IsraelS

At that time, the worker of the Hecht Museum Lichi Laszlo told the BBC that the museum would not cure the incident “with weight” because “the jar was accidentally damaged by a young child.”

The family was invited to the exhibition with his family for an organized tour shortly after the incident happened.