Mondriaan painting hung upside down in German museum for years

A Piet Mondriaan painting has been hanging upside down in the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen museum in Düsseldorf for decades. The German museum revealed the mistake in a press conference opening an exhibition in honor of Mondriaan’s 150th birthday, NOS reports.

The German museum added the painting to its collection in 1980. According to curator Susanne Meyer-Buser, there are several reasons to believe the painting, which consists of several horizontal and vertical strips, is hanging upside down.

In a photo taken in Mondriaan’s studio shortly after his death in 1944, the work of art can be seen on an easel. The strips that are closer together are at the top of the painting. This is also the case in an almost identical painting hanging in the Center Pompidou in Paris.

In the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, the closer-together strips are at the bottom. The museum doesn’t intend to rotate the artwork 180 degrees now that it has discovered the mistake.