Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 19 May 1943

Vol. 90 No. 3

Committee on Finance. - Vote 51—National Gallery.

Tairgim:

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £2,474 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1944, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí an Ghailerí Náisiúnta, maraon le Deontas-i-gCabhair.

That a sum, not exceeding £2,474, be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending the 31st day of March, 1944, for the Salaries and Expenses of the National Gallery, including a Grant-in-Aid.

In connection with this Vote, I want to make one suggestion. There is a very inadequate grant made to this gallery for annual acquisitions which, no doubt, the director and the board spend to the best advantage but it has occurred to me that the fixed nature of this grant orients the mind of the director and the board controlling the gallery away from certain masters whose work it is clearly impossible to acquire within the limited grant provided. Would the Minister consider, in consultation with the Board of the National Gallery, preparing a schedule of certain masters with this end in view—that, if the director should become aware of one of these desirable works coming upon the market, he would be free to make representations to the Minister for Education and, through him to the Department of Finance so that special authority would be forthcoming for a Supplementary Estimate for an additional sum to acquire that particular picture outside the annual appropriation for Vote 51?

Let me give a case in point. At the present time, I think, we are giving the gallery £1,000 a year for acquiring pictures. We have no examples in the gallery, so far as I am aware, of Van Gogh or Manet, Monet or Gaugin and I do not think we have a Renoir. There is a great school of painting which, so far as I am aware, is entirely unrepresented in our gallery. It is quite unthinkable that a picture of any of these masters would be available within the limit of the resources provided annually by us. There is no other fund that I know of from which the gallery can buy a picture. It would be natural that the director would hear if a good sample of the work of any of these masters was about to come upon the market. There is no use in his opening negotiations for its acquisition if he knows that he is limited to whatever remains of £1,000 because he knows that within that limit he could not possibly make an offer which would tempt the intending vendor. If, however, he felt free, in the event of such an offer being made known to him, to come to the Minister for Education in the foreknowledge that his application would be favourably considered, he might very easily acquire advantageously pictures which would involve the State in no loss at all, because it is highly likely that, over a period of years, as the number of these masters' canvases decreases by loss of one kind or another in the world at large, the value of the surviving ones will increase.

Opportunities, as we all know, in the art world present themselves from time to time. I know of a case in which somebody was travelling abroad and while he happened to be in the City of Sydney, an old gentleman died and, to the astonishment of everyone, one of Van Gogh's lost canvases was discovered in his bedroom. That was an opportunity to acquire something very advantageously if a prompt offer was available because, although such a picture could be negotiated by consigning it to Christie's in London or some other art centre in the world, disposing of it in Sydney was no easy task and the insuring of it to London with a view to putting it on sale there would have been a very formidable charge upon the executors who could not foresee what the picture would realise on being delivered at a suitable art centre for sale. Many other such occasions arise when a director of a gallery can purchase a very valuable acquisition for the State if the means to pay for it are available to him. At present our director, I think, is hopelessly hampered in that regard. Would the Minister consider at least a proposal along the lines laid down by me?

I propose the Schedule because I quite agree that it would be very desirable to have Titians, Rembrandts, Van Dykes and Michael Angelos, if we had the money to pay for them, and I think their names might be included in the Schedule, although I think it is highly unlikely that we would be able to pick up many bargains by these masters, but I do feel that we want to provide some wider discretion than the £1,000 at present named and I think the Schedule might reasonably, for the time being in any case, be confined to those masters no sample of whose art we at present have in our National Gallery and who we feel quite clearly should be there represented.

I think the intention was that the Dublin Municipal Gallery should cater for the modern schools.

God save the mark. Did the Minister ever go up and look at it?

A certain number of pictures of the French impressionist school were got there in the early days of the century. Although the population of the city has increased enormously since and although most people in the country believe that its circumstances have become affluent in proportion, and although it is now the centre of government, no great improvement certainly is to be seen in making pictures of that school available. I think the National Gallery bought one, or possibly more, pictures but there was a doubt, I think, in the director's mind as to whether he should not adhere steadfastly to the policy the gallery had pursued previously of purchasing pictures by the Old Masters. The amount of money we have is certainly very limited, particularly as prices have risen and I dare say prices of valuable pictures have risen very much higher than prices of other articles. So that, even if we were to increase the provision four or fivefold the amount that the director could do is limited. The Deputy may very well say that that is no argument against increasing the present provision but to increase it one requires the consent of the Minister for Finance. It has probably completely escaped the attention of the House since, but it is occasionally brought under the notice of Ministers in charge of Departments who are looking for money that, at the beginning of the war, there was a general understanding that new proposals for expenditure would not be entertained. New proposals had to be entertained, of course, in connection with matters arising out of the emergency and possibly other proposals have been introduced, but no matter how we in this House may feel about it, I think that this would be regarded by the public, and certainly by the finance authorities, as being in the nature of a luxury which the State cannot afford at the present time. We know that the director's resources are limited and that he has to eke them out, but if there was any particular picture which he thought he could obtain, with comparatively small additional expenditure, I would be glad to make representations in the matter, but I cannot hold out any hope that I would be successful.

May I say this—every cute boy in Europe at the present time is drawing his money out of the bank, and borrowing money from the bank to buy diamonds, emeralds, pictures and racehorses. The only "gom" in Europe is the Irish Government which is saving like fury at a time when everybody knows that the £1,000 they pay for a picture to-day will be worth about £100 in five years' time, whereas the picture worth £1,000 to-day will be still worth £1,000 in 20 years' time, and possibly will be worth £2,000.

If you buy the right picture.

If you buy the right picture. We have a Director of the Art Gallery. Give me a commission and I will buy the right pictures for you, if you have any trouble about it. I will guarantee, if I have the money to pay for them, to buy them all back from you at 25 per cent. more than I paid for them in 25 years' time. The trouble is that I have not got the capital to back up that undertaking, but I venture to say that any intelligent capitalist in Europe will undertake at the present time to take back from the Minister at 25 per cent. more than he has paid for them any of the pictures by the masters I have named. My proposal does not involve a question of expense. It is one for the saving of money. I wish the Minister would think it over, have a chat with the Minister for Finance, and see in this proposal if instead of an additional charge on the Exchequer, we are not providing a plan to relieve the taxpayer from the burden of taxation.

Vote put and agreed to.
Top
Share