Henri Matisse. \"The Plumed Hat,\" 1919 oil on canvas.
Courtesy National Gallery of Art; Chester Dale Collection
In her second alleged attack on a world-famous piece of art in the past four months, Susan Burns, 53, was arrested for attempting to rip a $2.5 million Henri Matisse oil painting off the wall of the National Gallery of Art and slamming the frame three times against the wall, police said.
Burns, 53, of Alexandria, was being held at D.C. Superior Court, but a court docket indicates that Burns was to be “transferred immediately” from a D.C. jail to St. Elizabeths Hospital “and to be monitored closely.”
Her recent past includes a highly publicized arrest on April 1 for allegedly trying to tear an $80 million Paul Gauguin painting off the wall of the National Gallery of Art. She pounded the painting, which was protected by a plexiglass shield, with her fists.
This time, with the museum surveillance cameras rolling, she walked over to Matisse’s “The Plumed Hat,” then “grabbed both sides of the frame holding said painting, damaging the antique original frame of the painting,” according to an arrest affidavit sworn by police Lt. Dexter Moten. “No damage to the painting itself was immediately apparent,” Moten said in the affidavit. Burns was charged with unlawful entry, contempt, destruction of property and attempted theft.
