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Dumb ass: Apologetic tourist parks bottom on priceless statue and breaks off two toes

An Austrian tourist put the ‘snap’ in happy snaps after sitting on a 200-year-old statue in an Italian museum.

According to a Facebook post from Museo Gypsotheca Antonio Canova, the tourist posed for a photo with a sculpture of Paolina Bonaparte.

Regrettably, the pressure of this tourist’s tush on the lounging figure of Ms Bonaparte caused two of her toes to break off from the rest of her body.

The Facebook post noted that after causing the damage, the tourist in question did not mention it to anybody, instead “quickly moving away from the Museum”.

An emergency situation was declared, an alarm sounded, and the “fragments” – which we assume to be the unfortunate lady’s missing toes – were found.

Ms Bonaparte was not available for comment but is likely annoyed by the incident.

She will be unable to walk on her own for some time.

An updated post said the tourist from Aistersheim had ‘‘turned himself in’’ on Tuesday, writing a letter to the president of the Canova Foundation, Vittorio Sgarbi.

The museum reported that the apology letter said: ‘‘I would like to self-sue myself, after today I read about the incident in the Austrian newspapers and it was immediately clear to me that I had to get in touch.

‘‘I remain at [your] complete disposal. It was irresponsible behaviour on my part. The consequences were not known to me, so I normally continued the visit to the museum and the entire stay in Italy (I didn’t escape).”

He said he was unaware of the damage and has asked ‘‘for information on the steps that are necessary on my part [to remedy] this very unpleasant situation … and for which, firstly, I apologise in every way”.

Mr Sgarbi said museum staff had already started planning to restore the work but ‘‘I appreciate the civic sense of these citizens and I take note of his words of embarrassment for what happened’’.

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