Re: Peabody Essex's New Gallery
The Museum of Fine Art's annual report came out today and list a donation from the van Otterloos of 200+ old master and modern prints. .....
If you read the article the Globe from February 2011, I wonder if they would feel safe having all the painting in their house now that it's so well publicized. The tour ends in February 2012 unless it's been extended.
http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_ar...he_public_at_the_peabody_essex_museum/?page=1
From the article it sounds as if the MFA might have the inside track on their Dutch stuff
"(Rose-Marie is on PEM’s board of trustees and a board member at the Museum of Fine Arts.).....
About 20 years ago, Eijk van Otterloo approached then-MFA curator Peter Sutton and told him he was thinking of collecting art from his birth country....
Since then, the van Otterloos have gone through many changes, from advisers — Sutton to former Rijksmuseum director Simon Levie and now Mauritshuis director Frederik J. Duparc — to the works themselves. At one point, at Levie’s suggestion, they sold more than a dozen paintings in order to upgrade their collection.....
“We knew this was going to be a huge sacrifice,’’ she said. “We’re really going to miss these paintings. But who is missing them the most are the museums that had them on long-term loan.’’
Over the years, works from the collection have been shown at the National Gallery, Metropolitan Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, London’s National Gallery, and Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum.
The MFA has been hit particularly hard by the exhibition. The museum had to remove the couple’s prized Rembrandt “Portrait of Aeltje Uylenburgh,’’ along with eight other works and a piece of furniture.
“It’s such a privilege to live with their paintings that you do miss them when they’re gone,’’ said MFA senior curator Ronni Baer.
She calls the van Otterloo collection “one of the finest, if not the finest, collection of Dutch paintings in private hands.’’
Collectors usually don’t like to talk publicly about where their art may end up, but the “Golden’’ show has the van Otterloos contemplating that very subject. Standing in her study, Rose-Marie raised a series of possibilities.
“Should it stay in Massachusetts? Should Europe have the collection? Belgium?’’
Eijk was more specific.
He said if they were to give it away now, it would probably go to the MFA. But he’s interested in hearing from MFA director Malcolm Rogers about how he might be able to accommodate a library of more than 10,000 Dutch art-history books the couple recently purchased.
The van Otterloos are also considering PEM; the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif.; and the National Gallery in Washington, at which admission is free, an attractive feature for a couple who say they think a lot about how to make art accessible to the public.
“Look, they probably have the most comprehensive collection of Dutch art assembled in our lifetimes in private hands,’’ said Sutton. “It’s an open secret that everybody would covet the collection.’’
The MFA’s Baer said acquiring the van Otterloo collection would be simply “amazing.’’
“It would lift the quality of our collection of Dutch painting to a whole different level,’’ she said. “It would be institution-changing.’’
But for now, the van Otterloos say they’re not ready to part with their work.
