On his first day on the job, a 'bored' security guard drew eyes to faceless figures at a Russian museum, vandalizing a valuable avant-garde painting.

"Three Figures" by Anna Leporskaya was painted between 1932 and 1934 and was insured for 75 million roubles ($1.3 million, £740,000). When the guard called attention to it using a ballpoint pen, it was on display as part of an abstract art exhibition at the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center in Ekaterinburg.

In a statement, Alexander Drozdov, executive director of the Yeltsin Center, did not name the security guard but claimed he worked for a private security firm and was sacked.

The picture was defaced "using a Yeltsin Center-branded pen," according to Anna Reshetkina, the exhibition's director.

“His motives are still unknown but the administration believes it was some kind of a lapse in sanity,” she said.

“The ink has slightly penetrated into the paint layer since the titanium white used to paint the faces is not covered with author’s varnish, as is often the case in abstract painting of that time,” Ivan Petrov wrote in the Art Newspaper, which broke the story.

“Fortunately, the vandal drew with a pen without strong pressure, and therefore the relief of the strokes as a whole was not disturbed. The left figure also had a small crumble of the paint layer up to the underlying layer on the face.”

Two visitors reported the graffiti to a gallery employee on December 7th. The picture was taken from the exhibition and returned to Moscow's State Tretyakov Gallery, which had borrowed it.

The Tretyakov's repair experts have calculated that the job will cost 250,000 roubles ($4,600).

On December 20, the Yeltsin Center reported the damage to the police, but the ministry of internal affairs in Ekaterinburg originally declined to prosecute charges since the damage was deemed "insignificant."

According to Russian media, the ministry of culture eventually protested to the prosecutor general's office about the delay of action, and police confirmed last week that an inquiry had been launched. A fine and up to three months in prison could be imposed on the culprit.

The remaining works in the show have since been protected by protective screens installed by the Yeltsin Center.