THERE is a growing campaign to save a recently discovered portrait of Robert Burns for the nation ("Burns museum interested in buying rediscovered portrait", The Herald, August 3).
This has been attributed to the artist Alexander Nasmyth, yet apparently it has no fully documented provenance.
It isn't quite clear where this alleged treasure will end up if it is brought into public ownership, though the fashionably new Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway has been suggested. Apparently the lucky individual who picked the portrait up at auction is expecting a sum in the region of £2m to come his way, which, roughly translated, means that this work of art is being regarded, first and foremost, as a winning lottery ticket.
There are many reasons why this recent discovery should not be acquired for the nation, not the least of which is that it seems to be merely another replica of the original in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Burns is remarkably well represented in portraiture and statuary around the world - and indeed he deserves to be - but do we really need another one?
A further reason why this suggestion should be given short shrift is that the finances of our public museums and galleries are in a parlous state. The National Galleries of Scotland seems to consider it more important to blow everything on the unnecessary rebranding of such buildings as the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, while its purchase grant has reportedly dwindled to somewhere around £200,000. Since culture, unlike health and policing, is a "soft-spend" area which is likely to incur further cuts, it would be folly to divert funding for something which is already represented in the national collection.
The displacement effect is also a consideration. If the purchase grant is wiped out to facilitate the acquisition of yet another Burns portrait, then other opportunities will be lost. There was a much more important painting which recently sold at auction for a little over one-tenth of the price we are told the latest Burns discovery is worth, and the institutional failure to acquire it was, I would suggest, something of a scandal. Dobson's outstanding portrait of James Graham, Marquess of Montrose, was of immense historical and iconographical value to Scotland, yet it was lost without the least effort being made to keep it in the country. Our national institutions should collectively be hanging their heads in shame.
O, wad some Power the giftie gie us...
David J Black,
6 St Giles Street,
Edinburgh.
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