Poussin on Tour

Some time ago I expressed my misgivings about the Louvre's decision to loan Poussin's canonical masterpiece Et in Arcadia Ego- left- to the High Museum in Atlanta. I learnt today via Lee Rosenbaum about Didier Rkyner's concern that the painting still hadn't returned to France. It arrived at the High on 30th, January 2007. That makes 8 months that it's been away from the Louvre! But as Rykner says, it has now gone to Denver until 6th January, 2008.

This contradicts what the Louvre said, namely that the Poussin would be loaned for five months. As Both Rosenbaum and Rykner point out, from Jan 07 to Jan 08 is far more than five months. As a Poussin scholar, I'm extremely worried about this painting travelling so much. Such a landmark painting is vulnerable to accident or theft, and apart from that there's the issue of the Louvre audience not being able to see it for a year. What would happen if the National Gallery in London were to loan Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne (right), say, for the same period of time? It would deprive the audience over here of a painting that they have every right to see when they visit. It's the nation's collection, isn't it?

Not that the National Gallery doesn't care about audiences who won't or can't come to see the great works in London. Over here in the UK, they occasionally circulate important paintings to lesser known provincial galleries so that people who don't go down to metropolitan galleries get the chance to see them. But the loan periods for such "travelling" type exhibitions are strictly observed. Surely the Louvre as the leading art gallery in the world should observe the same rules, especially with such an important painting?