Bizarre story of the day: Mona Lisa survives Russian teacup attack

SHOOT: Look, I'm not condoning it, but if you stare at the picture long enough - and that inane smile, I think it would make anyone loopy. It's also a much smaller picture than you would expect, and here is this not particularly attractive woman [who some say is a self portrait?] smiling at you?

Perhaps the Joker drew his inspiration from her. Smile for long enough and sooner or later people will go nuts... And from the history of this picture, see below, the Russian teacup hurler was not the first.

YAHOO: The 500-year-old painting was stolen in 1911 from the Louvre but was returned two years later after an Italian was arrested for its theft.

It was doused with acid by a vandal in 1956 and later the same year a Bolivian damaged it again by throwing a rock at it.

clipped from news.yahoo.com PARIS (AFP) – An "unhinged" Russian woman threw a teacup at the world's most famous painting, Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa," but it emerged unscathed due to its bullet-proof glass cover, the Louvre museum said on Tuesday. "The young woman took a cup out of her bag and threw it over the heads of other people who were looking at the painting. The cup smashed on the bullet-proof glass which was slightly scratched," a spokesman said. "It looks like it was done by someone who was unhinged and wanted to draw attention to herself," he said. The woman put up no resistance when museum guards apprehended her after the incident on August 2.