[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/rene-magritte-israel-museum-castle-pyernees.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tRen\u00e9 Magritte\u2019s The Castle of the Pyrenees <\/em>(1959) has gone to the conservation lab at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem after being accidentally damaged by a young museum visitor. A boy visiting the museum with his family punctured the painting with a pinecone before a museum guard could stop him, museum staff told The Times of Israel<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tSharon Tager, head of conservation at the museum, told Ha\u2019aretz<\/em> that repairs would take several weeks. \u201cWe\u2019re experienced in conserving paintings and objects that arrive in poor condition, including works that have been stored since the Holocaust period,\u201d Tager told Ha\u2019aretz<\/em>. \u201cThe first stage is treating the base itself because the hole caused the canvas to sag. We first restore the canvas to its original level, then stitch it and treat the layers of oil paint.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe museum didn\u2019t place the work under glass or place an alarm on it, in order to give a better viewing experience for the public.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe do place some works behind glass, including certain Impressionist paintings, using extremely high-quality glass that is barely noticeable,\u201d Tager told Ha\u2019aretz<\/em>. \u201cWe generally try to avoid alarms because visitors want to examine artworks up close. That\u2019s part of the museum experience. We look for other ways to protect objects, but there are limits.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe painting shows a castle atop a giant, floating rock, hanging before a partly cloudy sky over a seashore, and has resided at the museum since 1985. The artist\u2019s friend Harry Torczyner, a lawyer and writer, commissioned the work to cover over an unpleasant view from his New York office window. The artist encouraged his friend to make suggestions as to the painting\u2019s subject, and Torczyner chose this motif from a number of drawings Magritte showed him. He even suggested the sky and the sea, says the museum, writing, \u201cbecause over the dark sea or ocean there rises the rock of hope, topped by a fortress, a castle.\u201d Magritte, however, declined other suggestions in order to retain the \u201cvigor\u201d and \u201charshness\u201d he was aiming for.<\/p>\n \n\tTorczyner was thrilled with the results. \u201cLONG LIVE MAGRITTE!\u201d he wrote at the time. \u201c\u2018The Castle of the Pyrenees\u2019 floats majestically and proudly. It is superb\u2026 and intact! The waves of the North Sea bring me fresh air and joy. For the moment, the painting is hanging on the wall, while a custom-made frame is being installed to cover the window.\u201d There the painting remained for nearly twenty years. Torczyner gave the painting to the American Friends of the Israel Museum in 1985.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/magritte-castle-pyrenees-damaged-pinecone-israel-museum-1234788609\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/rene-magritte-israel-museum-castle-pyernees.jpg?w=1024″] Ren\u00e9 Magritte\u2019s The Castle of the Pyrenees (1959) has gone to the conservation lab at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem after being accidentally damaged by a young museum visitor. A boy visiting the museum with his family punctured the painting with a pinecone before a museum guard could stop him, museum staff […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1982568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1982568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1982568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1982568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1982568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}