Four or five people broke into a Paris museum on Sunday and punched a hole in a Monet. The group broke open a back door to the Musee d'Orsay and fled when an alarm sounded, but not before tearing a four-inch hole in "Le Pont d'Argenteuil," a scene of a bridge and boats on the Seine painted in 1874. The vandals appeared to be drunk.
The incident, which occurred on Nuit Blanche, an annual Paris all-night arts festival, was caught on security video, but no arrests have been made. The French culture minister said the painting could be restored. She continued, "It's always a heartbreak when an art object that is our memory, our heritage, that we love and that we are proud of is victim of a purely criminal act." (More Monet stories.)