New York is like many big, crowded cities in having plenty of art to bump into — or drop or toss in the trash or surrender to the cosmic banana peel. A drawing by Lucian Freud valued at more than $100,000 was accidentally put through a shredder by Sotheby’s in London in 2000. A man tripped over his shoelace on a staircase at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, and managed to shatter three Qing dynasty porcelain vases, as The Guardian reported.

There’s more. A painting by Giorgio de Chirico, “Piazza d’Italia,” was hanging on the wall of a townhouse in the Netherlands when demolition began on a bank next door. The wrecking ball came through the wall of the house and shot a perfect hole through the canvas. In Germany, a Ming dynasty lacquer plate — about 600 years old — was hit by a housekeeper’s elbow and ended up in bits on the ground. These two items were soberly displayed by Axa Art at the 2009 Art Basel exhibition in Switzerland under the caption “The Thrill of Protecting,” although it might as well have said, “Let This be a Lesson to You.”