The woman who threw a teacup at the Mona Lisa in 2009 was from Russia.
On 2 August 2009, a Russian woman attacked the painting at the Louvre by throwing a ceramic teacup purchased inside the museum. Contemporary reports said she was angry after being denied French citizenship. The cup shattered against the protective enclosure rather than striking the artwork directly.
The Mona Lisa was not damaged. By that time, the portrait had long been protected by security glazing because of earlier attacks. In 1956, a rock thrown at the painting broke through its glass and chipped a tiny area of pigment near the sitter’s left elbow. The Louvre subsequently strengthened the protection around the work.
The 2009 incident is sometimes confused with other attacks: a visitor sprayed red paint on the painting during a 1974 exhibition in Tokyo, while a disguised man smeared cake on its protective glass in Paris in 2022. Later, activists threw soup at the glass in 2024. None of those incidents damaged Leonardo’s original painting.