Whistler's Mother

Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1, famous under its colloquial name Whistler's Mother, is an 1871 oil-on-canvas painting by American-born painter James McNeill Whistler. The painting is 56.81 by 63.94 inches (144.3 cm × 162.4 cm), displayed in a frame of Whistler's own design in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, having been bought by the French state in 1891. It is now one of the most famous works by an American artist outside the United States and it has been variously described as an American icon.

Bean (1997)

In the movie, the Grierson Art Gallery is given a donation of $50 million dollars by General Newton so he could buy the painting. While it was on display, Mr. Bean sneezes on the painting and accidentally stains with an ink-covered tissue. In a panic, he takes the painting down and tries to clean it, but knocks it out of its frame, and steps on it. He then runs to the janitor's closet ,with the painting concealed, and applies lacquer thinner on the face of the painting. Though he was relieved that it was able to remove the ink, he discovers that he used the wrong type of paint thinner, which worsens the situation. In shock, he desperately tries to remove the thinner from the painting, but instead he ended up defacing it. Not knowing what to do, he draws a cartoony, childish-looking face on the white spot and quickly takes the painting back to the room where it was being kept before.

He quickly locks the door because someone is trying to come in, and for safety reasons he pulls a big plant in front of the door to prevent it from opening. Instead, David Langley, his colleague, enters from the other door, which Bean hadn't noticed. When he sees that the painting is not on the wall, he asks Bean on where it is, and the latter proceeded to show him on what he had done. This horrifies David, and as he knew that he'll be fired and sued for it, he immediately goes into a panic attack while Bean is left ashamed for his actions. The defaced painting is immediately returned to its place.

That night, Mr. Bean sneaks into the art museum so he could fix the problem. After distracting the night guard, in which he mixed an entire bottle of laxative into his cup of coffee and changing the men's room key with another key, Bean secretly swaps the Whistler's Mother painting with a reprinted poster of it via the usage of chewing gum, raw egg yolks, nail polish, and a hair dryer. As a result of Bean's efforts, this allows the poster to look like a real painting. Before he returned to David's House, Mr. Bean puts it in the painting's place and he took the real painting with him. The next day, Bean's work was able to successfully fool everyone, which also saved David's career. Later on his return to London, Bean managed to smuggle the painting with him and he took it home to his flat.