Should Michelangelo be for sale?

"Royal Academy's cruel dilemma: sell a Michelangelo or lose 150 jobs" was the alarming headline in the British newspaper The Guardian on September 20. The global coronavirus crisis has torn a deep hole in the museum's coffers, and now it is considering selling a masterpiece to make up for the financial losses.

The 515-year-old marble sculpture, known as Taddei Tondo, is one of the treasures of London's Royal Academy of Arts (RA) museum and is the only sculpture in the country by Renaissance master Michelangelo. Legendary British romantic-era painter John Constable is said to have been completely overwhelmed by Michelangelo's marble masterpiece, calling it "one of the most beautiful works of art in existence," reported The Guardian.

The unique marble sculpture by the Italian artist came to the British Museum in 1829 at the behest of a wealthy patron, Lady Margaret Beaumont — it was meant to inspire art students from the academy's schools. The marble relief was commissioned by cloth merchant Taddeo Taddei at the beginning of the 16th century during the artist's first stay in Florence. The Renaissance term "tondo" refers to the work's circular shape.

A valuable 'lump of marble'

The official name of the piece is The Virgin and Child with the Infant St. John, and although its exact sales value is unknown, some have estimated it at £100 million ($128 million/€110 million) — enough to save the jobs of 150 employees, or 40% of the museum's workforce. The process of selling works in a museum — known as "deaccessioning"— has long been taboo in the art world. Yet in the midst of alarming pandemic-related financial losses, many institutions are weighing whether it makes sense to hang onto each and every piece.

Viewpoints on the topic vary widely. An anonymous RA member is said to have called the Michelangelo piece a "lump of marble," saying that to cling to this item "that could make the RA financially secure for years to come is morally wrong," according to The Guardian.

The RA's leadership, including its president, Rebecca Salter, reportedly will not consider parting with items from the collection. A spokesman for the RA said the institution "has no intention of selling any works in its collection. We have the privilege and responsibility of being custodians of extraordinary works of art," The Guardian reported. 

Paris' Rodin Museum in trouble

Yet many other museums are parting with works from their collection, sometimes finding unique ways to make the most of their most valuable items. In July, the Rodin Museum announced it would part with works by the famous French sculptor after a 70% drop in visitors in 2020.

The works in question are bronze replicas made from the original casts, German-French television station ARTE reports. The practice of making replicas from original Rodin casts is quite common and helps generate extra income for the Rodin Museum, said the museum's director Catherine Chevillot.
According to Chevillot, selling the replicas is a typical way of improving the museum's cash flow, and this year it's been more needed than ever. Two-thirds of the approximately 500,000 people who visit the museum in a normal year come from abroad; most did not visit in 2020. For the first time in its history, the museum cast The Gates of Hell — a monumental sculpture depicting a scene from Dante's Inferno. Before now, only one version had been cast: that by Rodin himself. The new piece is for sale at the Gagosian Gallery in New York. 

As a private institution, the Rodin Museum does not benefit from the €614 million ($714 million) in direct financial aid for monuments, museums and cathedrals recently announced by French President Emmanuel Macron. This coronavirus aid benefits the Louvre Museum, the Chateau de Versailles and the Musee d'Orsay for example, which experienced 40 to 80% drops in visitors.

COVID-19 help not earmarked for private collections

Museums in the United States are also letting go of works as the pandemic rolls on. One of them is New York's Brooklyn Museum, which has chosen to auction off several pieces. "This is something that is hard for us to do," director Anne Pasternak told The New York Times last Thursday. "But it's the best thing for the institution and the longevity and care of the collections."

Twelve works from the museum's collection are scheduled to go under the hammer at Christie's auction house in October. A work by Lucas Cranach the Elder as well as a painting by the French impressionist Gustave Courbet are among them. 

The debate about whether or not to sell items in a museum's collection raged in the museum world long before the pandemic, particularly in the US where most museums rely on private funding from visitors and donors. In 2019, the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art all sold important works from their collections at Sotheby's auction house. With the millions of dollars gained from the sales, the museums were able to acquire new works to update their collections.

Selling off artwork would be unthinkable in German museums, whose collections are publicly owned. According to their statutes, these museums are committed to archiving, preserving and researching the works in their care. As such, selling an artwork to make up for losses is strictly prohibited.