I couldn't help but notice the double standards at play in what has arguably become the sector's biggest news story - the purchase or otherwise of the Duke of Sutherland's Titians.
Let me first say that I am not in the slightest bit concerned whether the nation keeps the latest Old Master - Diana and Actaeon - under threat of being traded abroad. I get that the whole Bridgewater collection is the most important loan to any public museum in the world. But the Duke of Sutherland, hard up for cash to keep him in the style he is used to, should be of little concern to the public purse.
Surely, if the Duke felt as the art world appears to, he would not be trying to raise cash on such valuable pieces, but would instead want to let them stay in the country by whatever means necessary. He is looking for £50m as rapidly as the end of the year. And £50m is supposedly a knock-down price. In return he promises the painting to the nation for keeps.
But aside from the argument that £50m could help right a lot social ills in this country (which I totally agree with), I am disappointed that there is still so much pandering to the elite which the ordinary struggling and coping classes are being drawn into.
What proportion of the British public visit either the National Gallery or the National Galleries of Scotland where the painting will reside? How far do these galleries reach out to the neighbourhoods where working two or three jobs to make ends meet is the norm?
On one of the many news items about the story, National Gallery director Nicholas Penny was asked if it would be sad if future generations didn't get to view the collection because it was lost to another country? I ask, would it be so bad if it did go abroad? It won't leave the western world - as no non-western country can afford such cock-eyed financial prioritising.
So it will still be easily accessible to those able to visit another national gallery. Isn't that the universal museum argument? That even though one museum may hold the object, it is for all the world to enjoy.
Let me first say that I am not in the slightest bit concerned whether the nation keeps the latest Old Master - Diana and Actaeon - under threat of being traded abroad. I get that the whole Bridgewater collection is the most important loan to any public museum in the world. But the Duke of Sutherland, hard up for cash to keep him in the style he is used to, should be of little concern to the public purse.
Surely, if the Duke felt as the art world appears to, he would not be trying to raise cash on such valuable pieces, but would instead want to let them stay in the country by whatever means necessary. He is looking for £50m as rapidly as the end of the year. And £50m is supposedly a knock-down price. In return he promises the painting to the nation for keeps.
But aside from the argument that £50m could help right a lot social ills in this country (which I totally agree with), I am disappointed that there is still so much pandering to the elite which the ordinary struggling and coping classes are being drawn into.
What proportion of the British public visit either the National Gallery or the National Galleries of Scotland where the painting will reside? How far do these galleries reach out to the neighbourhoods where working two or three jobs to make ends meet is the norm?
On one of the many news items about the story, National Gallery director Nicholas Penny was asked if it would be sad if future generations didn't get to view the collection because it was lost to another country? I ask, would it be so bad if it did go abroad? It won't leave the western world - as no non-western country can afford such cock-eyed financial prioritising.
So it will still be easily accessible to those able to visit another national gallery. Isn't that the universal museum argument? That even though one museum may hold the object, it is for all the world to enjoy.
