A court in south London charged him on Thursday with “criminal damage” to the two activists environmental group Just Stop Oil throwing tomato soup at Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ at the National Gallery in London in 2022.

Anna Holland and Phoebe Plummer, both 22, damaged the frame of the post-impressionist work with two soup cans and then knelt in front of the painting and pressed their hands to the wall while wearing Just Stop Oil T-shirts in October 2022.

A jury found the activists guilty of the incident on Thursday, but both Holland and Plummer denied the charges against them in front of several Just Stop Oil colleagues who were present at the trial during the verdict. Judge Christopher Hehir, who last week jailed five members of the environmental group, told the activists that will be released on bail until the reading of the sentence, scheduled for September 27.

His bail conditions stipulate that “They must not contain glue, paint or any adhesive substance” in a public place and are banned from visiting any gallery or museum. “What is more valuable, art or life? Is it more valuable than food or justice?” Plummer said outside Sunflowers, minutes before security at the London museum escorted the activists away and closed the room containing the Van Gogh painting to the public.

The attack on the famous post-impressionist work was the second that Just Stop Oil carried out as a form of protest at the National Gallery, months after two other activists glued their bodies to “The Hay Wain” by the English painter John Constable.