Culture

Nervous curators fear for art as duke calls in his loan to Scotland gallery

by Dave Keating | August 28, 2008 at 03:10 am

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Time's up for one of the collections at the National Gallery of Scotland, as the global economic turmoil seeps into the art world. The Duke of Sutherland, who owns the works and has been loaning them to the gallery, now says he must sell them. Now, a £100 million appeal has been launched to save the two most important paintings, two works by Renaissance artist Titian, worth £150million each. The works have been offered to the National Gallery for a third of the price, but the museum is unsure if it can even come up with that much money.

The moment that every museum chief most dreads came to John Leighton late last year.

The Duke of Sutherland informed the director-general of the National Galleries of Scotland that he wished to sell “a significant part” of the world’s most spectacular private collection of Old Masters, which have been on public view in Edinburgh for 63 years and are the institution’s pride and joy.

The Bridgewater collection is unique, but the ripple effects of the proposed sale could reach every important museum in the country. “With the Bridgewater Collection, the National Galleries of Scotland is a ‘must-see’ in the Michelin Guide,” Mr Leighton said yesterday. “Without it, it is ‘worth a detour’.”

The collection boasts glittering masterpieces by Titian, Raphael, Rembrandt and Poussin, and represents an extraordinary proportion of its owner’s wealth. The Art Newspaper values the Titians at £300 million and the rest of the collection at £1 billion, compared with the £30 million that The Sunday Times Rich List estimates for the duke’s non-art assets.