Two Just Stop Oil activists damaged varnish on £100m Rokeby Venus oil painting in National Gallery after smashing glass with hammer, court hears

Published: 18:02, 15 June 2026 | Updated: 18:15, 15 June 2026 Two Just Stop Oil activists smashed the glass of a £100million painting with a hammer and damaged its varnish during an attack designed to attract attention to their campaign against North Sea drilling, a court heard. Harrison Donnelly, 23, and Hanan Ameur, 25, attacked Diego Velázquez's 17th-century masterpiece The Rokeby Venus in the National Gallery while wearing Just Stop Oil T-shirts on November 6, 2023, it was said. The environmental protest group uploaded a video of the attack, during which the attackers used hammers to smash a protective glass pane, on social media after it wreaked damage totalling £6,445, Southwark Crown Court heard. Velázquez's painting, which depicts a nude goddess Venus gazing into a mirror held by Cupid, was previously attacked by suffragette Mary Richardson with a meat cleaver in March 1914. Charles Evans, prosecuting, said: 'In the autumn of 2023 the climate crisis protest group Just Stop Oil mounted a short campaign designed to [attract] the attention of the wider public and of the government their opposition to planned drilling for oil in the North Sea. 'They settled on action which could not be ignored. One such action that was designed to be newsworthy and to attract attention was an attack on a special painting at the National Gallery. 'The value [of the painting] was approximately £100million. 'In 1914 Mary Richardson, a Canadian suffragette, smashed this painting with a knife.' The Rokeby Venus was attacked in 2023, its protective glass smashed with a hammer and its varnish damaged, a court heard In a video uploaded to social media by the environmental group Just Stop Oil, a man can be seen standing in front of the smashed glass protecting the painting Mr Evans said Donnelly and Ameur 'jumped up, shed their coats, approached the painting and set about it with these hammers'. 'It was all over in a matter of about five seconds,' he added. During the hearing Ameur said: 'Women did not get the vote by voting. It is time for deeds, not words. It is time to Just Stop Oil.' Donnelly said: 'Politics is failing us...Millions will die due to new oil and gas licenses. If we love history, if we love art, if we love our families we must Just Stop Oil.' Mr Evans continued: 'Fortunately the damage to the painting itself was small, but there was damage and it needed putting right. There were three small areas of damage to the varnish.' 'The prosecution's case is that there was no reason or excuse for the defendants to damage the painting in the way that they did. They didn't have to do that to get their point across to the government.' Acquired by the National Gallery in 1906 for £45,000, The Rokeby Venus is the only nude painting of Velázquez's career. Donnelly, of Sillitoe Way, Nottingham, and Ameur, of Hornsey Road, Islington, deny damaging property. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.