Boy trips in museum and punches hole through million-dollar painting | Boy breaks his fall at a museum by punching a hole through a $1.5 million painting <br /> <br />Taiwanese 12-year-old holding a drink stumbles and tears through 17th-century oil on canvas by the Italian master Paolo Porpora <br /> <br />A 12-year-old Taiwanese boy lived out a slapstick nightmare at the weekend when he tripped at a museum and broke his fall with a 350-year-old painting, smashing a hole in the work of art valued at $1.5m. <br /> <br />Footage released by the organisers of the Face of Leonardo: Images of a Genius exhibition in Taipei shows the boy in shorts, trainers, a blue Puma T-shirt and holding a drink walk pass the still life, catching his foot and stumbling over. <br /> <br />He looks up at the Paolo Porpora oil on canvas painting of flowers, shown later to have a fist-sized gash at the bottom, and freezes, looking around at other people in the room. <br /> <br />The organisers will not ask the boy’s family to pay for the restoration costs, according to Focus Taiwan news. It said the exhibition organiser, Sun Chi-hsuan, said the boy was very nervous but not to be blamed and the painting, part of a private collection, was insured. <br /> <br />Porpora was a leading still life artist who produced baroque-style paintings, often of fruit and flowers. The damaged work, 200cm tall and titled Flowers, depicts sunflowers, roses, tulips and carnations.
