Two Just Stop Oil activists have been jailed after throwing tinned tomato soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers masterpiece.
Anna Holland and Phoebe Plummer, both 22, were found guilty of criminal damage at Southwark Crown Court in July.
Plummer was sentenced to two years and Holland received 20 months on Friday.
While the painting was not harmed in the attack, there was damage to its 17th-century gold-coloured frame, which prosecutors said was “a piece of art in itself”.
The court had heard that the soup, which the pair bought at a nearby Tesco, acted like paint stripper on the wood frame.
In a video from the attack, Plummer was heard saying: “What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice?
“Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people? The cost of living crisis is part of the cost of oil crisis.”
Sentencing the eco-activists, Judge Christopher Hehir said the painting could have been “seriously damaged or even destroyed”.
“Soup might have seeped through the glass,” he continued.
“You couldn’t have cared less if the painting was damaged or not.
“You had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers.”
Plummer also received a three-month jail term for her part in a slow march which caused long tailbacks in west London in November 2023.