ART & DESIGN

Sale of Old Masters Sets Off an Outcry in Ireland

By LORNE MANLYJUNE 2, 2015

Peter Paul Rubens’s “Portrait of a Bearded Man.” CreditChristie's

Over the past four decades, the art collection at Russborough House has drawn both the attention of I.R.A. thieves and the interest of more than a million visitors to this 18th-century Georgian mansion.

Soon that collection will be smaller, though, thanks to a decision by the foundation that oversees the house to sell off nine artworks, including six old master paintings by the likes of Rubens, David Teniers the Younger and Francesco Guardi, at Christie’s in London next month.

The sale, which Christie’s estimates could raise as much as $12.5 million, is being promoted as a way to shore up the crumbling finances of the house, an imposing example of Palladian classicism.

But the sale is also provoking an outcry among cultural-world denizens in Ireland and some members of the foundation’s board who believe the public should not lose access to the art.

An Taisce, a national heritage society, has called for political intervention to secure the future of the collection in Ireland. The Irish Arts Review, an arts quarterly, is collecting signatures for a petition to halt the auction. And the Irish Georgian Society forced its representative on the foundation’s board to resign after discovering that he had voted in favor of the decision without consulting the society.

“The gift was made to the Irish people,” said Carmel O’Sullivan, head of the school of education at Trinity College Dublin and a foundation board member. “As trustees, it is our responsibility, our moral responsibility, to preserve that for the Irish people.”

Constructed over a decade in the mid-18th century by the first Earl of Milltown, the house, 25 miles outside Dublin, stretches almost 700 feet and is representative of the large country houses built by wealthy Protestant English families in predominantly Roman Catholic Ireland.

In 1952, Russborough became the home of the Englishman Sir Alfred Beit (heir to a diamond and gold mining fortune) and his wife, the former Clementine Mitford, along with their art collection. That renowned collection attracted some unwelcome guests. In 1974, Irish Republican Army gunmen stormed the house with AK-47 assault rifles. They tied up Sir Alfred in the library, banished his wife to the basement and took 19 paintings, including works by Vermeer, Rubens, Goya and Gainsborough, from a couple they castigated as “capitalist pigs.”

The artwork was recovered 11 days later inside a cottage in County Cork after a nationwide search.

In the aftermath the couple turned their mansion and its art into a charitable foundation that opened Russborough House to the public in 1978. The house has nonetheless experienced at least three more thefts, including one in 1986 when 17 paintings were stolen.

“Venus Supplicating Jupiter,” also by Rubens. CreditChristie's

The foundation’s leaders have said the art collection’s vulnerability to theft remains a concern and that, along with operating deficits and the cost of repairing the crumbling infrastructure, led them to sell the old masters.

“In order to fulfill its responsibility to the Beit legacy, the endowment fund which will be established with the proceeds raised by selling this small and very carefully selected group of paintings is an absolute necessity,” the foundation, known as the Alfred Beit Foundation, said in a statement announcing the Christie’s sale.

In an email, Eric Blatchford, chief executive of the foundation, said, “The paintings for auction have not been on display at Russborough or elsewhere for nearly 20 years and with no prospect of them returning to Russborough, because of their value, it was a relatively sensible option to select these paintings for auction.” (Worries over security have kept the paintings in storage.)

Among the works being sold, two oil on oak paintings by Rubens, “Head of a Bearded Man” (estimated to sell for $3.2 million to $4.7 million) and “Venus Supplicating Jupiter” ($1.9 million to $2.8 million) carry the highest estimates.

As is the case in the United States, museum leaders in Ireland typically frown on the sale of artwork to bolster operating expenses.

The Irish Museums Association’s position is that works held in trust on behalf of the public should be sold only in the most exceptional circumstances. In addition, the Irish Heritage Council has a museum standards program that sets out when and how collections can be disposed.

But Lesley-Ann Hayden of the heritage council says it is a voluntary code and Russborough House has not joined the organization.

Art collections in manor houses are attractive assets but also can pose burdens that go well beyond the cost of protecting and insuring them. The cost of upgrading the lighting, air quality and the like to museum standards would be prohibitive for many old country houses, and Ireland, still suffering from nearly a decade of economic austerity, has generally not come to the rescue of cultural organizations or landmarks.

There is also the political question of financial support for so-called big Houses, whose historical baggage includes the association of the land-rich estates with British colonialism.

Russborough House, home of the Beit Collection. CreditDeAgostini/Getty Images

“Irishmen permitted tenancies as estate workers often resented the sectarian intolerance, anti-democratic politics and the pretense of social elitism of their putative colonizers,” said Ruan O’Donnell, senior professor of history at the University of Limerick.

Owners of such estates have resorted to other methods of revenue raising, including renting them for festivals and rock concerts or transforming them into luxury boutique hotels, like Castlemartyr, where Kim Kardashian and Kanye West spent their honeymoon.

Others, like the long-time owners of Bantry House, a stately home southwestern Ireland, and Westport House in the west, offloaded possessions.

Russborough House has sent items to auction before. It sold a collection of 15th- and 16th-century Italian bronzes at Christie’s in 2006, and antique Chinese porcelain at Sotheby’s in 2013.

Critics of the foundation’s decision recognize that Russborough House faces steep challenges. Yet they urge the board to intensify its search for other income sources. Ms. O’Sullivan, for example, said that during her three years on the board she has pushed for stepped-up fund-raising from the private sector.

And some believe that there can be a role for the state. An Taisce, the national heritage society, last month proposed to the government that its Office of Public Works take ownership of the house and grounds with the foundation still owning the contents, as it did with an 18th-century house in Castletown in 1994. The minister has acknowledged the letter but no date for a meeting has been set.

Meanwhile, Heather Humphreys, the minister for arts, heritage and the Gaeltacht, has set up a committee to advise her on how best to sustain these historic houses.

Amid the brouhaha over the paintings headed for the Christie’s auction, some voices urge perspective. After turning over their home to the nation, the Beits, in 1987, bestowed a stunning selection of paintings to the National Gallery of Ireland, including ones by Vermeer, Goya and Gainsborough.

“These paintings are out-and-out masterpieces which have transformed the national collections for Ireland,” said Henry Pettifer, the head of old master pictures at Christie’s in London.

“However much I can talk about the importance of the paintings we’re selling in July, they don’t compare to the masterpieces that have been given to Ireland already.”