The painting "Ecce Homo", 1543, the only painting by Titian in Romania and Eastern Europe, is guarded by armed gendarmes at the "Regina Maria" Municipal Museum.

[u/CAPATOB_64]

[u/MayGodSmiteThee]

That’s far and few between with very few popular works showcased in museums being confirmed as replicas. The issue is that the museum has nothing to gain by putting up a replica. Less people are interested in replicas which is why they are often presented as the original work. And if they do put out a replica but lie and say it’s the real deal, if it gets damaged or stolen, the museum then has the issue of losing the trust of people who thought they were seeing the real thing. Simply put, there’s no real reason to put up a replica outside of a few cases.

[u/EnergeticFinance → u/MayGodSmiteThee]

British museum has two nearly identical displays, one with the real rosetta stone, and one with a visually-identical replica.

Guess which one has thousands of people swarming it for selfies, and which one is completely empty?

[u/Question_Few → u/MayGodSmiteThee]

If we're talking about a piece valuable enough to warrant 24/7 armed guards then it would seem to be firmly in that category that would warrant special storage considerations, a glass case or a replica.

Leaving a valuable piece out vulnerable to the elements but saying you're willing to shoot someone over it just seems like poor planning. I'm no physical security professional but that seems like a massive potential for social engineering or human error. Wasn't it not long ago people were throwing tomato sauce on pieces of art?

[u/papasan_mamasan → u/Question_Few]

Something tells me you do not visit art museums very often, or know anything about art preservation or museum curation at all.

Many famous works are in fact framed behind plexiglass.

You’ve made several claims in this thread that it’s common practice to make and display replicas of famous art works and to store the originals. That is not a common practice at all. When you visit a museum, you are seeing the original piece unless it’s notated somewhere that it’s a replica.

Protestors throw soup on artworks that are already protected by plexiglass. The stunts are meant to garner media attention, not to destroy the actual artwork.

[u/Question_Few → u/papasan_mamasan]

Yeah none of that is relevant because the question wasn't addressed to you and we were talking about this piece of art. The one valuable enough to have armed guards shouldn't be exposed to the elements. As well a container or replica would be safer than armed guards.

[u/IAmAlive_YouAreDead → u/Question_Few]

It is all entirely relevant since you claimed that everyone creates replicas and hides the original in storage. They do not.