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# Selfie-Seeking Tourist Topples 18th-Century Sculpture
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/selfie-seeking-tourist-topples-18th-century-sculpture/
- Published: 2016-11-10T17:32:16.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:28:29.000Z
- Description: Another museum has felt the sting of selfie culture, and this time it is in Portugal.
- Author: Claire Voon
- Tags: In Brief, art damage, selfie, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:23 (2016, 2017, part 2)

> Brasileiro destrói estátua de 300 anos ao tirar selfie em museu de Lisboa [https://t.co/xSAuJXM9YB](https://t.co/xSAuJXM9YB?ref=hyperallergic.com) [pic.twitter.com/1AT86T1KXJ](https://t.co/1AT86T1KXJ?ref=hyperallergic.com)  
>  
> — UOL (@UOL) [November 8, 2016](https://twitter.com/UOL/status/795921748239777792?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=hyperallergic.com)

Our blood boiled when [that kid](http://hyperallergic.com/106355/parents-of-the-judd-climbing-kid-speak/) climbed a Donald Judd sculpture. We shook our heads when tourists [in Milan](http://hyperallergic.com/115340/man-breaks-statue-in-quest-for-selfie/) and [Lisbon](https://hyperallergic.com/in-quest-for-selfie-tourist-scales-and-smashes-126-year-old-statue/) broke centuries-old statues to take selfies with them. When women in China [filmed](https://hyperallergic.com/kids-smash-art-at-glass-museum-while-adults-stand-by-filming/) children pull and shatter a glass sculpture, we gasped in disbelief; when, most recently, a man in Pennsylvania spent one minute [poking](https://hyperallergic.com/watch-this-ding-dong-clock-a-museum-timepiece/) a clock sculpture until he destroyed it, we could really only laugh.

![The statue, prior to its fall (photo via @penaspg/Instagram)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/11/14717549_321117208272978_852958076666380288_n.jpg)

The statue, prior to its fall (photo via @penaspg/Instagram)

It seems these absurdities will never end no matter how much we may shame irresponsible guardians or selfie-seekers. Now, we have the buffoon who, this week, visited Lisbon’s [National Museum of Ancient Art](http://www.museudearteantiga.pt/english?ref=hyperallergic.com) (NMAA) and toppled an 18th century, Portuguese sculpture while posing for a photo with it. The polychrome wooden sculpture of the archangel Saint Michael fragmented after the man, a Brazilian tourist, tripped and backed into the gallery’s tall centerpiece. The depressing aftermath was captured by another visitor, Nuno Miguel Rodriges, who [told](https://www.publico.pt/culturaipsilon/noticia/ouvi-um-estrondo-so-podia-ser-uma-peca-a-cair-1750249?ref=hyperallergic.com) Portuguese newspaper *Público*, “There were guards in the room at the time it happened … Everyone was incredulous at what had happened and there was a great silence.”

The museum [posted](https://www.facebook.com/mnaa.lisboa/photos/br.Abo%5FlOh%5FaUKPfUFTfqzHx89sjIPXBvW7GH6dimEX0M-Ci747koTfQ0HRzQwgvNwSO5hQXAtXOA2L3gaJp%5F3Pp2V4on6nBP8lF4eeu0YmuaR%5FXoPGpknv19oRXCC3sB0ZPnSmbJ4grcQ4BPYK0INVoe2A/10153489926857609/?type=3&theater) a statement on its Facebook noting that the sculpture will undergo examination by its conservation team, which will release a technical report to the public as soon as possible. But the situation “is deplorable,” as NMAA’s deputy director José Alberto Seabra Carvalho [told](http://www.dn.pt/artes/interior/danos-na-estatua-do-museu-de-arte-antiga-sao-reversiveis-5483367.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) Portuguese daily *Diário de Notícias*. “The statue is very affected in the wings, in one arm and mantle. The damage is severe but reversible.” The museum will also consider installing a different plinth to display the work when it eventually returns to the gallery.

The museum did not name the culprit, but we did a little poking around, and the statue seems like a pretty popular selfie magnet this week …