The Shortlists
Acquisition of the Year | Book of the Year | Exhibition of the Year | Digital Innovation of the Year| Museum Opening of the Year
In September, the French and Dutch culture ministers announced that the two countries had jointly acquired a pair of full-length Rembrandt portraits for £160 million. The paintings, which depict Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit on the eve of their wedding in 1634, are to be shown alternately at the Louvre and the Rijksmuseum. This ambitious bilateral arrangement has largely drawn plaudits for the progressive manner in which the museums have defied institutional and national bounds. But some commentators have sounded a note of caution: have the museums made adequate provisions to cope with unforeseen cultural or political instabilities?
Another unusual sharing agreement applies to the National Gallery’s acquisition of a panel by Giovanni da Rimini, which will significantly enrich its holdings of medieval Italian paintings. Funding for the purchase was provided by the American philanthropist Ronald S. Lauder, on the condition that the work would be loaned to him during his lifetime, and intermittently be displayed in London. It is an arrangement that bodes well for cash-strapped European institutions looking to retain artworks that are considered culturally indispensable.
Many of the works illustrated on the following pages will resonate in the specific institutions that have acquired them. The Rijksmuseum has become the first public collection in the Netherlands to own a major work by the Dutch master Adriaen de Vries; the Frick Collection has been given a Murillo self-portrait that has belonged to the Frick family since 1904; and the Ashmolean Museum raised the necessary funds to purchase a Turner view of Oxford High Street that has been on loan to the Oxford institution since 1997. The gift to the MFA Boston of 186 objects once owned by the Vienna Rothschilds is of major significance: the museum is the first in the US to acquire a collection illustrative of le goût Rothschild.
Click on or hover over an image to view full details
- Israel Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- National Gallery of Art, London
- Mauritshuis
- Städel Museum
- J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
- Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
- Rijksmuseum
- National Gallery of Art, Washington
- Frick Collection
- Rijksmuseum and Musée du Louvre
- Rijksmuseum and Musée du Louvre
- Toledo Museum of Art
- Museo Nacional del Prado
- Fitzwilliam Museum
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art
- Rubin Museum
- Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- Yale Center for British Art
- Ashmolean Museum
- Philadelphia Museum of Art
- National Gallery of Art, Washington
- Scottish National Portrait Gallery
- J. Paul Getty Museum
- The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts
- Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek
- Cantor Arts Center
- Princeton University Libraries
- Leeds Art Gallery
- British Museum
- Tang Teaching Museum
- Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
- George Eastman Museum
- Various UK Public Collections
- Art Institute of Chicago
Apollo Award Winners 2015
Personality | Artist | Acquisition | Exhibition | Digital Innovation | Book |Museum Opening