National Gallery's Canaletto on tour

November 7 2014

Picture: National Gallery

The National Gallery's 'Regatta on the Grand Canal' by Canaletto is going on a tour of UK museums next year. Here are the details:

The three host venues for 2015 are the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath; Compton Verney, Warwickshire and Sunderland Museums and Winter Gardens.

The Masterpiece Tour is part of the National Gallery’s commitment to promote the understanding, knowledge and appreciation of Old Master paintings to as wide an audience as possible. This opportunity to bring hugely popular National Gallery paintings to the public’s doorstep is being made possible by the generous support of Christie’s.

Victoria Art Gallery, Bath; 7 March – 3 May 2015

Compton Verney, Warwickshire; 9 May – 21 June 2015

Sunderland Museums and Winter Gardens; 11 July – 13 September 2015

More details here. 

Further to my ongoing campaign to get more London museums to share their stored treasures, it's worth noting that the National Gallery is one of the 'good guys'; fully half their collection is on display at any one time. And as their storage is all on site, there isn't massive cost associated with keeping things hidden away. Of the NG's 14 Canalettos, 10 are on display. Which puts into context the 43 out 50 Constables that Tate has in a storage site in Southwark. 

 

Incidentally, I asked Tate repeatedly for some sort of costing for their storage facilities, but all I've got so far is delay and obfuscation. Not exactly what one would hope for from a publicly funded institution...

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