Exploiting Raphael's La Velata: Portland Should Reconsider

Wonderful news emerged from Portland, OR., this weekend: Come October 24, the Portland Art Museum will put Raphael's La Velata (Woman With A Veil) on view, thanks to a deal with the Italian government via the New York-based Foundation for Italian Art & Culture. It will be a one-painting exhibition and the lady, who resides in the Palatine Gallery in Florence and has been out of Italy only once or twice before, will also travel to the Nevada Museum of Art and the Milwaukee Art Museum. 

She can handle it -- much as Parmigianino's Antea was a star at the Frick Collection last year (Antea's run was actually extended). Aside the work's beauty, there's the question of who La Velata was -- the same woman, a baker's daughter, who was Raphael's mistress and the subject of La Fornarina, or not? Intrigue is always good.

But there's bad news in the announcement, too. The Portland Museum plans to charge general admission of $17 to see La Velata, according to The Oregonian. The museum will also be showing China Design Now during its run, which has a special admission charge of $15. Neither ticket comes with reciprocal admission to the other show.

It's bad enough to have a hefty $17 charge for a one-work show -- a charge that's steep even for a multi-work blockbuster that involves a lot of scholarly research, a catalogue, extensive loan agreements, lots of shipping, lots of insurance (yes, La Velata need insurance, too -- she's worth tens of millions of dollars). But to make visitors pay for another special show -- seen at the same time -- is beyond the pale.

Museum director Brian Ferisso told The Oregonian that his pricing strategy is a gamble to get people to become members of the museum. Single memberships cost $55 and dual-family memberships cost $85.

I'm all for membership drives. I'm all for trying new pricing stratgies, which I wrote about here in April. But exploiting Raphael's one-woman show this way will put her out of the range of many viewers -- especially as the holiday season approaches and in this economy.

I urge the museum to reconsider, and I urge Nevada and Milwaukee not to follow Ferisso's lead.

Update: According to the museum's website, it will now offer a premier ticket for $20 permitting entry to both La Velata and the China design show.