Anna Leporskaya's Three Figures (c. 1934), insured for 74.9 million rubles (~$1m), was defaced by a security guard "bored" on his first shift [Daily Mail] at the Yeltsin Center in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Restoration will cost thousands of dollars, and the security guard was fired.
The Yeltsin Center said in a statement released on Tuesday: 'We inform you that during the investigation, the person who painted the eyes on the figures in the painting by Anna Leporskaya was identified – this is an employee of a private security organization that carries out security activities of the Yeltsin Center. … 'The damage was done with a ballpoint pen.' The Center added: 'The work was inspected by the restorer of the State Tretyakov Gallery the very next day and sent to Moscow. The painting is being restored, the damage, according to the expert, can be eliminated without consequences for the work of art.
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