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Just Stop Oil: Protesters throw soup on Van Gogh paintings

Just Stop Oil supporters have thrown soup over two Vincent van Gogh paintings, just hours after two activists were given prison sentences.

Three protesters threw an orange-coloured vegetable soup at the paintings in the Poets and Lovers exhibition at the National Gallery in central London.

Earlier on Friday, Phoebe Plummer, 23, was given a two-year jail term, while Anna Holland, 22, got 20 months, for throwing soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in October 2022.

The pair caused £10,000 of damage to the gold-coloured frame of the glass-covered painting.

As the activists – two women and a man – threw soup over two of van Gogh’s Sunflower paintings on Friday, onlookers could be heard shouting “no” and “don’t do it”.

One of the paintings, Sunflowers 1888, was the same one that Plummer and Holland threw soup at two years ago.

“Be on the right side of history,” one of the protesters shouted out as she stood in front of the painting, wearing a Just Stop Oil T-shirt.