Loans at a time of austerity

DonorsChoose.org update: MAN readers fulfilled Project No. 1 in mere hours! Projects 2-5 are here, more later.

One of the joys of visiting the Getty is finding what software publishers call 'easter eggs' throughout the permanent collection galleries. At the Getty 'easter eggs' take the form of non-Getty paintings that happen to pop up in the galleries because of a one-off loan agreement. Who knows why they're there -- a conservation arrangement, perhaps or hands-across-the-sea -- but the surprises are always fun to find.

For example, this is Goya's Suerte de varas (1824), one of the last paintings he made on canvas. In 1792-93 Goya suffered a serious, unknown illness that seems to have left him deaf. In the wake of that illness he made several dramatic, gory bullfight pictures, and returned to the subject time and time again over the next three deacdes. Goya painted this one four years before he died. Click here to see a larger version, to see how truly gored and bleeding that white horse is.

To the left of the Goya the Getty has installed Delacroix's Evening After a Battle, on loan from the Museum Mendag in The Hague. The Delacroix is also a painting about violence and the bloody remnants there of. It's, er, fun to compare Goya's handling of the end to Delacroix's portrayal of the same.

This is all a long way of saying that in a time of reduced museum budgets that 'trading' single paintings is a good way to provide accents to a museum's collection. I wish more museums would consider it. The National Gallery of Art, which recently enacted a staff travel ban (a minor cost-cutting move that screams Congressional appropriations-season symbolism more than it says substance), would be a great place to start. (The NGA already sends effectively a picture a year back and forth with the Norton Simon.) [Update: I should have been more careful in my wording: An NGA spokesperson says there's no "ban," but did not further clarify. The item comes from multiple NGA staff who have told MAN there's a freeze, etc.]

In the spirit of helpfulness, I'll propose the first exchange: The NGA owns this fantastic 1783 Goya portrait of Maria Teresa de Borbon y Vallabriga as a child. About 20 years later Goya painted Maria Teresa again, when she was the Condesa de Chinchon. (He painted her four times in all.) The Prado owns that one. Visitors would have the opportunity to compare Goya's changing style, his treatment of his sitter, and so on. And it would be relatively cheap.

Related: Bloggers are invited to come up with similar 'trades' for their local museums over the long weekend. If there are enough, I'll do a roundup post early next week. Email 'em to me at LinksforMAN-blog (at) yahoo (d o t) com.