Visitor at Italian museum sits on crystal-covered 'Van Gogh' chair, breaks it & leaves without telling staff

A museum in Verona, Italy, released footage of two visitors breaking one of their art exhibits.

According to the BBC, the incident is believed to have taken place in April at Palazzo Maffei, and the museum has notified the police on the couple.

The couple was not identified.

The chair, by Italian artist Nicola Bolla, is known as the "Van Gogh chair" as a tribute to the Dutch artist's painting of a chair.

The chair is covered in hundreds of Swarovski crystals made from "polished, machine-cut glass". An art historian based at the museum told BBC that the frame of the chair is "mostly hollow and kept together with foil".

There was a note on the chair warning people not to touch it.

In the video, the pair can be seen taking pictures where they pretend to sit on the chair, although initially not actually sitting on the chair.

However for some reason, the man decides to actually sit on the exhibit after a bit.

And here they are exiting the scene of the sitting.

According to the BBC, museum director Vanessa Carlton said that while this was "of course" an accident, the pair left without speaking to the staff.

"Sometimes we lose our brains to take a picture, and we don't think about the consequences."

All images and videos from Palazzo Maffei/FB