Two jailed for throwing soup over Van Gogh's Sunflowers

Two climate activists from Just Stop Oil who threw soup at Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers painting in London's National Gallery have been jailed for criminal damage.

Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, threw tins of Heinz tomato soup on the artwork in October 2022, before glueing themselves to the wall below the painting.

Staff at the gallery inspected the painting and frame for damage while the women were still attached to the wall, and were worried the soup may have dripped through the protective glass.

The soup caused up to £10,000 (€12,000) worth of damage to the frame, prosecutors said, though the painting – which was behind a protective screen – was unharmed and went back on display later the same day.

The pair pleaded not guilty but were convicted after a trial at London's Southwark Crown Court, where Plummer was sentenced to two years in prison for the criminal damage charge.

Holland was sentenced to 20 months in prison.

Judge Christopher Hehir said Plummer and Holland "came within the width of a pane of glass of irreparably damaging or even destroying" the painting, which he said was "probably priceless in a literal sense".

"Soup might have seeped through the glass," he continued.

"You couldn't have cared less if the painting was damaged or not.

"You had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers."

The judge told Plummer, who was also handed a criminal behaviour order: "You clearly think your beliefs give you the right to commit crimes when you feel like it. You do not."

Plummer also received a three-month jail term for her part in a slow march which caused long tailbacks in west London in November 2023.

Raj Chada, defending Holland, said the women "did check" that the painting was protected by a glass cover before throwing the soup.

Plummer, representing herself, told the hearing: "My choice today is to accept whatever sentence I receive with a smile.

"It is not just myself being sentenced today, or my co-defendants, but the foundations of democracy itself."

Painted in Arles in the south of France in August 1888, van Gogh's painting shows 15 sunflowers standing in a yellow pot against a yellow background.

The priceless work was the second from the National Gallery to be selected as a target for protest action by Just Stop Oil in 2022.

Two supporters glued themselves to John Constable's The Hay Wain in July of that year.

In 2022, Plummer said in front of the Sunflowers painting: "What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice?

"Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people? The cost-of-living crisis is part of the cost-of-oil crisis."

In July, just five days after her guilty verdict, Plummer was arrested for spraying paint on departure boards at Heathrow Airport.

A number of Just Stop Oil supporters gathered outside the court, some of whom held posters of historical figures jailed for activism.

Additional reporting Reuters