The National Gallery has closed and areas of Trafalgar Square have been cordoned off following reviews of a ‘distressed’ man on the gallery roof.
Met Police had been known as to the London artwork museum at 2.35pm right this moment after a person in a “distressed condition” was noticed on its roof, prompting the gallery to ‘temporarily’ shut its doorways.
The drive stated: ‘London Ambulance Service has also attended and are attempting to make contact with the man. Officers have attended and local roads have been closed as a precaution.’”
The National Gallery added: “We can confirm that the Gallery will not reopen today. We will update again as soon as we are able to about visiting the Gallery tomorrow.”
The City of Westminster Police wrote on X, previously generally known as Twitter: “Due to an ongoing incident, parts of Trafalgar Square near the National Gallery are closed. Please avoid the area.”
A London Ambulance Service spokesman added: “We were called at 2.41pm today (22 August) to reports of an incident in Trafalgar Square.
“We have sent a number of resources including an ambulance crew, an incident response officer, and members of our Hazardous Area Response Team (HART). Our crews remain at the scene alongside other emergency services.”
The National Gallery is a significant London vacationer attraction and accommodates over 2,300 works akin to van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait, Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus, Turner’s Fighting Temeraire and Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, in line with its web site.
All main traditions of Western European artwork work are included, going as far again to thirteenth century work by Duccio, Uccello, van Eyck, Lippi, Mantegna, Botticelli, Dürer, Memling and Bellini.
Its twentieth century work embody these by Canaletto, Goya, Turner, Constable, Ingres, Degas, Cézanne, Monet and Van Gogh.
In October final 12 months, the gallery closed its doorways to 1 room after Just Stop Oil activists lined Van Gogh’s 1888 Sunflowers work in tomato soup.
The protestors, sporting Just Stop Oil T-shirts, threw two tins of Heinz Tomato soup over the £72.5m portray, earlier than kneeling down in entrance of the portray and making use of glue to their fingers to stay themselves to a close-by wall.
Visitors had been then escorted out by safety, who shut the doorways to room 43 of the gallery the place the portray hangs.