English Heritage said no to Dutch loan request for ‘fragile’ Vermeer painting
English Heritage refused to lend one of its most precious paintings to a blockbuster Vermeer exhibition, claiming it was too fragile to travel, despite expert assurance that the risk of damage was “negligible”, documents reveal.
Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum tried to gather all of Johannes Vermeer’s 37 surviving paintings in one place for the largest ever exhibition of work by the Dutch master.
‘The Guitar Player’ at London’s Kenwood House was one of only nine known Vermeer paintings not to appear at the show, which ended earlier this month.
Now correspondence released after a freedom of information request reveals the lengths gone to by the Rijksmuseum’s curators to try persuade English Heritage, which runs Kenwood, to temporarily part with the painting.
At the start of the charm offensive last July senior figures from the organisation, including its chief executive, Kate Mavor, were treated to breakfast at the exclusive Wolseley restaurant in Mayfair by a Rijksmuseum delegation led by its director, Taco Dibbits, to discuss the potential loan.
The Rijksmuseum even commissioned a report by “the world’s leading expert [on] vibration mitigation” to try to convince English Heritage that the painting could be safely transported to Amsterdam using the latest technology.