On March 8, an unnamed woman, part of a group called Palestine Action, attacked a painting of Lord Balfour at Trinity College, Cambridge. (Balfour studied there from 1866-69: this must be the connection). She cut it seven times with a knife and sprayed red paint over Balfour’s face. All this was filmed for some gruesome archive. The painting’s crime, of course, is that it pictured the man who authored the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which included the line: “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” The painting is — or we can assume, was, from the damage — by Philip Alexius de László, a Hungarian-Jewish migrant to Britain. It was a fine painting, if not a great one. We know nothing about the woman who destroyed his work, except she wore plaits — an infant’s hair style — and had a £1,000 bag on her back, by Mulberry if you care.
Trinity College said it “regretted the damage”, in the laconic style of the Establishment when cornered.
