A 47-year-old man is due before Dublin District Court tomorrow morning charged in relation to criminal damage to a painting at the National Gallery on Friday.
A large hole was made in French impressionist Claude Monet's 1874 painting, Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat, during an incident on Friday morning.
The incident at the gallery was captured on CCTV while a number of people in the room at the time are believed to have witnessed it.
Gardaí are asking anyone who visited the National Gallery on Friday morning to contact them at Pearse Street on 01 666 9000.
The damaged painting was bequeathed to the National Gallery by the musicologist – and one of the founders of the Abbey Theatre – Edward Martyn, along with six other works by Degas, Corot and others, in 1924.
Martyn was a cousin of George Moore. On a visit to Paris, Moore took him to art dealer Durand-Ruel's and, according to Peter Somerville-Large, "persuaded him to buy a sparkling river scene by Claude Monet and two pastels by Edgar Degas".
The painting is the epitome of serenity. Bathed in soft sunlight, a boat sails close to a leafy bank of the Seine, the suburban town of Argenteuil visible in outline in the distance.
Market values for substantial works by Monet are now well into the tens of millions. A Water Lilies painting exceeded £40 million at auction in 2008. Smaller, less iconic works of quality are unlikely to fetch below the £10 million mark.