Woman vandalises Louvre's 'Liberty' painting

PARIS - Reuters

A security guard blocks the entrance of the "Galerie du Temps" at the Louvre-Lens Museum in the French northern city of Lens, on February 8, 2013 after a woman vandalised on the eve the Eugene Delacroix masterpiece "La Liberté guidant le Peuple" Liberty leading the people, by writing on it "AE911" with a black permanent marker on the painting. AFP PHOTO/ PHILIPPE HUGUEN

France's Louvre-Lens museum shut two galleries on Friday after a woman scribbled with a black marker pen on its star painting, Eugene Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People".

Police were questioning a 28-year-old woman who was arrested on Thursday evening after writing "AE911" across a 30 cm section at the bottom of the work, a judicial source said.

"AE911Truth" is the name of a website called "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth" whose backers say they are seeking to establish the truth of the September 11, 2001 suicide airliner attacks on New York's Twin Towers.

Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People", painted in 1830, was chosen by the Louvre-Lens in northern France as its emblem for its official opening last December and is on loan from the main Louvre museum in Paris.

The work, depicting a bare-breasted woman brandishing a tricolour flag and leading her people over the bodies of the fallen, commemorates the 1830 French Revolution.

The museum said an initial examination suggested the damage was superficial and the famous work could be easily restored.