Police are investigating after a vandal defaced an original Pablo Picasso painting at a Texas museum last week and it happened to be captured on video by another museum-goer.
A grainy cellphone video on YouTube shows a man in a suit spray-painting a stencil of a bullfighter killing a bull on the 1929 Picasso painting "Woman in a Red Armchair" at Houston's Menil Collection museum. The man also wrote the Spanish word "Conquista" (meaning to conquer) before he fled.
The person who posted the video online alleges the culprit is a Mexican-American artist. Further to that, the museum-goer who filmed the spray painter told KPRC Channel 2 the vandal identified himself as an artist looking to honour Picasso's work.
Houston police spokeswoman Victor Senties told the Houston Chronicle they are investigating it as a criminal mischief case.
Museum security immediately took the painting to its in-house expert for repair June 13, the newspaper reports.
The value of the painting is unknown, however similar Picasso pieces have sold for tens of millions of dollars, the museum said.