WHEN Sir William Burrell gave his remarkable collection of art to the people of Glasgow in 1944, it was an act of generosity in a very different world to the one facing us today.
It was a world at war, of course, and one in which sea travel was dangerous and unpredictable. The industry of Glasgow ensured a level of pollution which the city does not endure today. His famous Deed of Gift forbade overseas travel and did not want the art housed in the city's centre. Earlier this year, a Bill was passed through the Scottish Parliament enabling overseas tours of this famous collection housed in the museum which was eventually built to house the art, in Pollok Park, and which is now in need of major repair.
So the new exhibition of the "cream of the cream" of this collection, opening at Bonhams in London on Monday, serves two purposes. It alerts the wider UK that this remarkable and idiosyncratic collection - featuring armour and Rembrandt, antique statues and Rodin's The Thinker - can now be viewed outside its Glasgow home. From 2017, a world tour will follow.
It will also alert those with funds to spare that the next great cultural project in the city is the£45m redevelopment of the Burrell Museum - and that project will need such philanthropy to begin and complete its own Renaissance.
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