The abstract painting is estimated to be worth up to €50m (£42.5m), according to newspaper AD.

“Conservation expertise has been sought in the Netherlands and abroad. We are currently researching the next steps for the treatment of the painting”, the museum spokesperson told the BBC.

“We expect that the work will be able to be shown again in the future,” they added.

Sophie McAloone, the conservation manager at the Fine Art Restoration Company, said that “modern unvarnished” paintings like Rothko’s Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 are “particularly susceptible to damage”.

This is “owing to a combination of their complex modern materials, lack of a traditional coating layer, and intensity of flat colour fields, which make even the smallest areas of damage instantly perceptible,” she said.

“In this case, scratching of the upper paint layers can have a significant impact on the viewing experience of the piece,” Ms McAloone said.

The Rothko painting was hanging in the museum’s Depot – a publicly accessible storage facility beside the main museum – as part of an exhibition displaying a selection of “public favourites” from the gallery’s collection.

Jonny Helm, a marketing manager at the art restoration service Plowden & Smith, said the incident had implications for UK institutions such as V&A East and the British Museum, which are considering “opening up the display of things that would otherwise be obscured in archives.”

“How will this event affect other UK institutions who are opening up their archives in the same way?” Mr Helm said.

Restoring a Rothko painting is a difficult task because “Rothko’s mixture of pigments and resins and glues were quite complex”, Mr Helm said.

He said the fact the painting is unvarnished – meaning it is “open to the environment” – will pose an additional challenge to conservators.

Conservators working to restore the painting will now likely be in the process of documenting the extent of the damage and researching “historic successful treatments” of Rothko paintings.

“Rothko works seem to have terrible luck – this isn’t the first damaged Rothko we’ve heard about,” Mr Helm said.

Rothko’s 1958 work, Black on Maroon, was deliberately vandalised by Wlodzimier Umanjec at London’s Tate Modern gallery in October 2012. Umaniec was sent to prison for two years and subsequently apologised for his actions.

During his trial, prosecuting barrister Gregor McKinley said the cost of repairing the work would be about £200,000. It took conservators 18 months to repair the painting.

Steve Rai, Vancouver Police’s interim chief, told a news conference that there had been one vehicle and one suspect involved in the incident. He said more details would be released in the morning.

The owner of a food truck selling bao buns at the festival, Yoseb Vardeh, told the BBC World Service that the attack happened right in front of his van.

“This guy, he killed some of my customers,” he said. “There was people waiting for their buns that got hit.”

Mr Vardeh added: “I stepped outside of my food truck and I just saw bodies underneath people’s food trucks, husbands crying out for their wives or their kids… It was just horrible.”

Unverified footage posted on social media showed a number of police cars, ambulances and fire engines at the scene, with injured people lying on the ground.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement on X that he was “devastated to hear about the horrific events at the Lapu Lapu festival in Vancouver”.

He continued: “I offer my deepest condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured, to the Filipino Canadian community, and to everyone in Vancouver. We are all mourning with you.”

He also thanked emergency responders for their “swift action”.

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim said he was “shocked and deeply saddened by the horrific incident”, adding in a post that his “thoughts are with all those affected and with Vancouver’s Filipino community during this incredibly difficult time.”

One of Vancouver’s city councillors, Peter Fry, told the BBC that local residents were struggling to process what had happened.

“This celebration was a huge, fun, vibrant, family-orientated street party, and it was a fantastic event. To see it turn so horrible so quickly and unexpectedly has, I think, our entire city is in shock,” he said.

Lapu Lapu Day is celebrated every year in the Philippines on 27 April to commemorate Lapu-Lapu, a national hero who resisted Spanish colonisation.

The festival was officially set up in Vancouver in 2023. Its website says it “symbolises the cultural harmony and mutual respect that thrive in the province of British Columbia”.

In the wake of the attack, leaders of different political parties have also been sharing messages of condolence.

Pierre Poilievre, leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, called the incident a “senseless attack”, while the leader of the British Columbia New Democratic Party, David Eby, said he was “shocked and heartbroken”.

New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh – who had attended the festival but was not present when the incident occurred – said he was “horrified to learn” that innocent people had been killed and injured.

“As we wait to learn more, our thoughts are with the victims and their families – and Vancouver’s Filipino community, who were coming together today to celebrate resilience,” he added.

Singh, Poilievre and Carney are all running in Canada’s federal election on Monday. Singh’s constituency of Burnaby Central lies just east of where the incident took place.

It was Trump’s first face-to-face encounter with the Ukrainian president since February’s acrimonious Oval Office showdown.

Writing on his Truth Social account, Trump said the Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities “makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?'”.

Trump had previously said Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal” following three-hour talks between his envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russian president on Friday.

The Kremlin meanwhile said on Saturday that Putin had confirmed Russia’s readiness to enter into direct talks with Ukraine “without preconditions” to Witkoff.

[BBC]