Tuesday morning, staff of the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera discovered the leg of an iconic statue broken off and on the ground, according to Time magazine.
While there are no known photos of the person (or persons) responsible for the statue’s disfigurement, the academy’s security cameras did manage to capture some video footage of someone trying to sit on the statue’s knee and pose with a camera. His identity has not been released, but he is believed to be a foreign student.
Several media outlets reached out to academy officials, but they could not be reached for comment.
The statue, called Barberini Faun, or drunken satyr, is a 19th century Greco-Roman piece. Or a clone of one, anyway.
The statue that the student allegedly sat on is a copy of the original. While the statue’s creator is unknown, there are many copies throughout the world. The original resides in Munich, Germany, at the Glyptothek museum.
Incidentally, if you really want to take selfies with statues, but would prefer not to break them, there’s a website for that: museumselfies.tumblr.com/
