I'm reminded of a scene from one of the Pink Panther movies in which Peter Sellers as Clouseau with his trademark lethal clumsiness smashes a grand piano to bits. When the piano's owner exclaims, "But... but that's a priceless Steinway!" Sellers/Clouseau replies in his mangled, super-exaggerated French accent, "Not any more."
Neil Leslie | 01.31.06 - 12:43 pm | #

Don't museums usually keep stuff like that behind glass?
Annalucia | 01.31.06 - 1:01 pm | #

You break it, you buy it.
Karen LH | 01.31.06 - 1:09 pm | #

"... we are glad that the visitor involved was able to leave the museum unharmed," said Duncan Robinson, the Fitzwilliam's director.

I have a strong suspicion that wasn't his first thought.
Rich Leonardi | Homepage | 01.31.06 - 1:30 pm | #

Rich...my thoughts exactly! My utter humiliation coupled with the though of Oh, my...I owe this museum, like, a gazillion dollars probably would have warranted a trip to the hospital from the massive coronary I would suffer in that situation.
Amy P. | Homepage | 01.31.06 - 1:45 pm | #

Why did the museum keep $15MM of vases just sitting on a shelf without security or glued down?
Arnold | 01.31.06 - 1:59 pm | #

Arnold: My thoughts exactly. I mean, somebody at the museum must have thought about the posibility of somebody tripping and shattering the priceless vases, right? Guess not...

I hope the museum has enough glue to stick all the tiny pieces together!
Veronica | 01.31.06 - 2:32 pm | #

How could those vases still be priceless after they're glued together? I'm picturing the museum equivalent of a CSI team or a forensic anthropologist piecing these vases back together, like Humpty Dumpty.
Lee Anne Millinger | Homepage | 01.31.06 - 2:54 pm | #

Wow. Gives a whole new impetus to "Tie your shoes!"
c matt | 01.31.06 - 3:35 pm | #

I wonder if, for safety's sake, duplicates were actually on display?
ELC | Homepage | 01.31.06 - 3:50 pm | #

ECL,

Rest easy. I slipped the real Qing Dynasy vases into my bag when I visited the Fitzwilliam last year. Those were clever fakes I made in my garage.
john c | 01.31.06 - 4:19 pm | #

Look for a similar vase to turn up on next season's Antiques Roadshow. Surely someone's Aunt Maisie has one just like it sitting on a curio shelf somewhere.

(Would some kind soul enlighten my ignorance? How does one pronounce "Qing"? Thanks.)
trespinos | 01.31.06 - 6:30 pm | #

Trespinos:

As best I can tell, it comes out something like "Ching". In the oddball Romanization system (pinyin) in use now, there's a single Romanization for all languages using the Roman alphabet (English, French, German, Hungarian, etc.) - so some of the letters aren't pronounced anything like normal English. The guide I found on Wikipedia says that a "q" is to be read like the first "ch" in "church". Go figure.
SparcVark | 02.01.06 - 12:33 pm | #