Displaying items by tag: national gallery of ireland

A man who punched a hole through an £8million Claude Monet painting has been jailed for six years and banned from all galleries - despite claiming he collapsed onto it due to a heart condition.

Andrew Shannon strolled calmly into the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin before attacking the 1874 work "Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sail Boat," which was left needing two years of repairs.

The 49-year-old, who later underwent a quadruple heart bypass, denied deliberately tearing the painting and told police he had felt dizzy and lost his balance.

A €10m artwork by Claude Monet all but destroyed when a man put his fist through it is once again hanging where it belongs after a painstaking restoration.

The impressionist painting was ripped apart in a devastating three branch tear in June 2012 while it hung in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.

After a delicate 18 month restoration, "Argenteuil Basin With A Single Sailboat," dating from 1874, has been restored to near its former glory and is back on the walls.

The tears on the canvas laid end to end would have been about a foot long in a painting less than four feet square.