The recent acquisition of Mattia Preti’s Boethius and Philosophy, by The National Development and Social Fund, is a commendable move. The masterpiece has been loaned to Heritage Malta to be eventually enjoyed by one and all.
Successful repatriation of national treasures redeems the humiliation meted out to our patrimony at the insensitive whim of our country’s past rulers. These works of art define Malta in much the same way as our music, our literature, our folklore, our urban architectural fabric, our countryside and also our sea.
Preti’s long sojourn in Malta in the 17th century, coupled with Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s much shorter but travailed one, enriched our cathedrals and churches as well as private collections with masterpieces from the Baroque era. The Pretis in the national collection are a feather in the cap of MUŻA and are a tourist attraction in their own right.
Such initiatives obviously carry a hefty price tag but the benefits to our country’s cultural fabric and to its art history are inestimable.
In July 1988, the then Mid-Med Bank had purchased a painting, via a Sotheby’s London auction, by the 19th century British genius Joseph M. W. Turner depicting Valletta’s Grand Harbour. In 2003, the painting was graciously loaned to the National Museum of Fine Arts. To this day, it enhances one of the halls at MUŻA.
Corporate collections are always to be encouraged as they contribute to a healthy local contemporary art scene as well. Loans to our national collection are a win-win situation – art is always an investment and there is always a return beyond the monetary dimension. Internationally, corporate collections are often of superior quality to those found in highly reputable national museums.
A symbiotic relationship between the government and private companies would, with their combined financial clout, open new doors to acquisitions of important works of art even on the international market. It is a direction which the government and the private sector could pursue.
A thematic or historical link to Malta is the major criterion used when a national or private entity decides to throw its weight behind a prospective acquisition. This, however, limits the perspective as the search is focused on art which satisfies a particular palate.
Our national collection would be so much richer and varied had the local authorities in the last century been insightful enough. Assigning a noteworthy budget for acquisitions to a resourceful curator with knowledge of the international primary and secondary art market would have enabled Malta not to miss out on juicy occasions that would nowadays have been the cherries on the cake of our national collection. MUŻA is sadly lacking in international 20th century art.
Major works by blue-chip modern masters like Picasso, Matisse and Modigliani are today priced out of the country’s reach. However, purchasing works of art by contemporary up-and-coming artists, potentially tomorrow’s great masters, is a path which the government and the private sector might be interested in pursuing.
Malta could have afforded a seminal David Hockney 50 years ago when the prices were not the eye-watering ones of today. The addition of a Hockney masterpiece to our national collection would have been a tourist attraction on its own merits.
This is no attempt to belittle the Preti acquisition and its allure as a missing piece in the puzzle of our country’s art history. However, it would also be worthwhile for our country, for the sake of its cultural future, where it to partake in the larger jigsaw puzzle of the international art market and be open to savour its fruit.