Summary<\/p>\n
A five-year-old boy holding a pine cone inadvertently damaged a beloved Magritte painting at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
\n Conservators are now restoring the 1959 surrealist work, which depicts a castle floating above stormy seas on an enormous rock.
\n The museum says such incidents occasionally happen worldwide and it is evaluating how to balance visitor access with protecting artworks.<\/p>\n
\n AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.<\/p>\n
\n A painting<\/a> by the Belgian artist Ren\u00e9 Magritte<\/a> has been damaged by a 5-year-old boy wielding a pine cone.\n <\/p>\n \n Conservators at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem are currently restoring the \u201cCastle of the Pyrenees\u201d after the child caused what the museum described as \u201cminor damage\u201d to it in a recent incident.\n <\/p>\n \n The 1959 painting, which depicts a castle atop an enormous rock floating above stormy seas, is a \u201cbeloved highlight\u201d of the institution\u2019s collection, according to the museum. It was commissioned by the surrealist\u2019s good friend and patron Harry Torczyner, who gave it to the institution in 1985 to mark its 20th anniversary.\n <\/p>\n \n A spokesperson for the museum told CNN on Friday that the painting \u201csustained minor, unintentional damage caused by a five-year-old child who was holding a pine cone.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In a statement emailed to CNN, the spokesperson said: \u201cAs one of our most-visited paintings, a five-year-old boy and his grandmother sought it out in our modern art galleries a few weeks ago, resulting in minor damage.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The spokesperson said the damage was done \u201cinadvertently,\u201d amounting to \u201can unfortunate incident that occasionally happens worldwide.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Indeed, this is not the first time a work by a world-famous artist has been damaged by a young museum visitor. Last year, a Mark Rothko painting, believed to be worth millions of dollars, had to be removed from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. \u201cGrey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8\u201d was damaged when a visiting child scratched it. That piece has since been fully restored and is currently on display as part of a major Rothko exhibition in Florence, Italy.\n <\/p>\n