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After a whirlwind month, the National Gallery appears to be right back where it started, with little to show for its controversial plan to sell Marc Chagall’s The Eiffel Tower, beyond the possibility of a stiff financial penalty.
The National of Gallery refused to confirm or deny a report Thursday that it is preparing to cancel the sale of Chagall’s The Eiffel Tower.
“The gallery does not comment on rumours. We will contact you when we have new information to share,” senior media and public relations officer Josée-Britanie Mallet wrote in an email.
Citing unnamed sources, the Globe and Mail reported Thursday morning that the gallery has begun to backtrack on its plan to sell the much-loved 1929 painting next month at auction at Christie’s in New York for as much as an estimated $9 million US.
On Thursday afternoon, citing a government source, CBC News reported that the gallery’s board of trustees made the decision to withdraw the piece from auction on Wednesday.
What that means for the National Gallery remains unclear.
Some in the art world have said that the gallery could face a hefty cancellation fee if the Chagall is withdrawn from auction, while others speculate the fee may be waived altogether, due to the optics of fining a publicly-funded institution.
Word of the Chagall sale emerged in late March. However, the gallery would only say then that the sale, an unprecedented move that involves one of its two Chagall paintings, was needed to finance the acquisition of a “national treasure” that was more important than The Eiffel Tower. The then-unnamed sought-after work was in danger of being purchased by a foreign buyer, said National Gallery director and CEO Mark Mayer.
While the gallery has an annual acquisitions budget of $8 million, Mayer said the mystery painting needed to be purchased over and above the gallery’s typical acquisitions budget.
But in April, newspaper reports determined that the gallery intended to use funds from the Chagall’s sale to buy the 1779 painting Saint Jerome Hears the Trumpet of the Last Judgement by the French painter Jacques-Louis David. That painting is owned by the Notre-Dame-de-Québec Parish Corp. in Quebec City, which is selling it to finance the upkeep of its properties.
Citing the David painting’s historical and cultural importance in Quebec, the Musée de la civilisation in Quebec City and the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal said they were interested in jointly acquiring that work, and they even spoke of collaborating with the National Gallery on the acquisition. However, Mayer ruled out teaming up.
Then this week, Quebec’s minister of culture announced that the David painting would be classified a provincial heritage document under Quebec’s Cultural Heritage Act and therefore remain in Quebec — effectively blocking the National Gallery’s efforts to acquire it.
The National Gallery this week released an open letter stating that the sale of the Chagall painting would go ahead nonetheless, despite developments in Quebec and public outcry against the Russian-French painter’s work leaving Canada.
“The proceeds from the sale of Marc Chagall’s The Eiffel Tower will be used for three important purposes: supporting the possible acquisition of David’s Saint Jerome, establishing a financial safety net to acquire works at risk of leaving the country, and strengthening the gallery’s ability to acquire major works of art, either alone or in partnership with the National Gallery of Canada Foundation,” said the letter written by Mayer and Françoise Lyon, chair of the gallery’s board of trustees and released Monday.
Rebecca Riegelhaupt, a public relations manager for Christie’s, would not discuss the possibility of the Chagall painting being taken off the market. Nor would she speak generally about the contracts that the auction house has with sellers.
Before being sold outside of Canada, the Chagall painting was offered for purchase to more than 150 Canadian museums. None stepped forward. The sale at Christie’s required the gallery to receive an export permit under the Cultural Property Export and Import Act.
If the Chagall painting remains at the gallery, the reversal will delight untold Canadian fans of the painter, including hundreds who signed an online petition that urged Mélanie Joly, Canada’s Minister of Canadian Heritage, to block the sale.
The decision to sell the Chagall painting had even prompted the painter’s granddaughters in France to write the Gallery to express their dismay over the painting leaving Canada.
Asked if Joly would comment on the possibility of the Chagall painting remaining in the National Gallery’s collection, the minister’s press secretary Simon Ross replied that “the Museums Act provides the Gallery with the clear authority to manage its collection independently,” and referred questions to the gallery.
The penalty that the gallery could incur if it cancels the sale of the Chagall is unknown.
Bruce Bailey, a Toronto art collector who sits on the acquisition committee of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, said that a standard contract between Christie’s and a seller would include a penalty clause for withdrawal of an artwork. In the case of The Eiffel Tower, the cancellation fee could be about $1 million, based on the work’s estimated value, Bailey said.
But while Christie’s would have incurred expenses in seeking buyers for the painting, Bailey — who called cancelling the Chagall sale “the right decision” — and others said the auction house could opt to waive the penalty.
Stephen Ranger, vice-president of Waddington’s, a Canadian auction house, even speculated that it would be “highly, highly unlikely” that Christie’s would collect a massive penalty as a result of a cancelled sale of the Chagall.
“They don’t want to look like the bad guys … they don’t want to be portrayed as gouging the Canadian taxpayers,” Ranger said.
“There is the possibility that Christie’s might not be too sad” if the Chagall were to come off the auction block, Ranger added. Christie’s could well be concerned that the uproar could affect both its reputation and even the price that the painting could fetch at auction, he said.
Art buyers might well be put off by the newfound notoriety surrounding the Chagall, Ranger said.
查看原文...
The National of Gallery refused to confirm or deny a report Thursday that it is preparing to cancel the sale of Chagall’s The Eiffel Tower.
“The gallery does not comment on rumours. We will contact you when we have new information to share,” senior media and public relations officer Josée-Britanie Mallet wrote in an email.
Citing unnamed sources, the Globe and Mail reported Thursday morning that the gallery has begun to backtrack on its plan to sell the much-loved 1929 painting next month at auction at Christie’s in New York for as much as an estimated $9 million US.
On Thursday afternoon, citing a government source, CBC News reported that the gallery’s board of trustees made the decision to withdraw the piece from auction on Wednesday.
What that means for the National Gallery remains unclear.
Some in the art world have said that the gallery could face a hefty cancellation fee if the Chagall is withdrawn from auction, while others speculate the fee may be waived altogether, due to the optics of fining a publicly-funded institution.
Word of the Chagall sale emerged in late March. However, the gallery would only say then that the sale, an unprecedented move that involves one of its two Chagall paintings, was needed to finance the acquisition of a “national treasure” that was more important than The Eiffel Tower. The then-unnamed sought-after work was in danger of being purchased by a foreign buyer, said National Gallery director and CEO Mark Mayer.
While the gallery has an annual acquisitions budget of $8 million, Mayer said the mystery painting needed to be purchased over and above the gallery’s typical acquisitions budget.
But in April, newspaper reports determined that the gallery intended to use funds from the Chagall’s sale to buy the 1779 painting Saint Jerome Hears the Trumpet of the Last Judgement by the French painter Jacques-Louis David. That painting is owned by the Notre-Dame-de-Québec Parish Corp. in Quebec City, which is selling it to finance the upkeep of its properties.
Citing the David painting’s historical and cultural importance in Quebec, the Musée de la civilisation in Quebec City and the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal said they were interested in jointly acquiring that work, and they even spoke of collaborating with the National Gallery on the acquisition. However, Mayer ruled out teaming up.
Then this week, Quebec’s minister of culture announced that the David painting would be classified a provincial heritage document under Quebec’s Cultural Heritage Act and therefore remain in Quebec — effectively blocking the National Gallery’s efforts to acquire it.
The National Gallery this week released an open letter stating that the sale of the Chagall painting would go ahead nonetheless, despite developments in Quebec and public outcry against the Russian-French painter’s work leaving Canada.
“The proceeds from the sale of Marc Chagall’s The Eiffel Tower will be used for three important purposes: supporting the possible acquisition of David’s Saint Jerome, establishing a financial safety net to acquire works at risk of leaving the country, and strengthening the gallery’s ability to acquire major works of art, either alone or in partnership with the National Gallery of Canada Foundation,” said the letter written by Mayer and Françoise Lyon, chair of the gallery’s board of trustees and released Monday.
Rebecca Riegelhaupt, a public relations manager for Christie’s, would not discuss the possibility of the Chagall painting being taken off the market. Nor would she speak generally about the contracts that the auction house has with sellers.
Before being sold outside of Canada, the Chagall painting was offered for purchase to more than 150 Canadian museums. None stepped forward. The sale at Christie’s required the gallery to receive an export permit under the Cultural Property Export and Import Act.
If the Chagall painting remains at the gallery, the reversal will delight untold Canadian fans of the painter, including hundreds who signed an online petition that urged Mélanie Joly, Canada’s Minister of Canadian Heritage, to block the sale.
The decision to sell the Chagall painting had even prompted the painter’s granddaughters in France to write the Gallery to express their dismay over the painting leaving Canada.
Asked if Joly would comment on the possibility of the Chagall painting remaining in the National Gallery’s collection, the minister’s press secretary Simon Ross replied that “the Museums Act provides the Gallery with the clear authority to manage its collection independently,” and referred questions to the gallery.
The penalty that the gallery could incur if it cancels the sale of the Chagall is unknown.
Bruce Bailey, a Toronto art collector who sits on the acquisition committee of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, said that a standard contract between Christie’s and a seller would include a penalty clause for withdrawal of an artwork. In the case of The Eiffel Tower, the cancellation fee could be about $1 million, based on the work’s estimated value, Bailey said.
But while Christie’s would have incurred expenses in seeking buyers for the painting, Bailey — who called cancelling the Chagall sale “the right decision” — and others said the auction house could opt to waive the penalty.
Stephen Ranger, vice-president of Waddington’s, a Canadian auction house, even speculated that it would be “highly, highly unlikely” that Christie’s would collect a massive penalty as a result of a cancelled sale of the Chagall.
“They don’t want to look like the bad guys … they don’t want to be portrayed as gouging the Canadian taxpayers,” Ranger said.
“There is the possibility that Christie’s might not be too sad” if the Chagall were to come off the auction block, Ranger added. Christie’s could well be concerned that the uproar could affect both its reputation and even the price that the painting could fetch at auction, he said.
Art buyers might well be put off by the newfound notoriety surrounding the Chagall, Ranger said.
查看原文...
