A museum insider said: “It’s really very serious, particularly when the director, Tristram Hunt, has been advocating that decoupling is possible.”
The National Heritage Law, established in 1983, prohibits administrators of selected national museums from giving away objects from their collections unless, for example, they are duplicates or damaged beyond repair. Before that legislation, the V&A was among the museums that could have works.
Last year, Dr Hunt, a former Labor MP, had called for the law to be reviewed, telling the BBC: “Museums have a huge amount of material now… some of which has to be thrown away, and we don’t have the freedom to do so.” Do that.”
In February, he told The House: “I’m still of the same opinion. But the ministers have said it’s not in the cards, so I have to respect that.”
‘Out of style’
Dr. Warren said: “The [Vase of Dreams] It was considered one of the great works of the age. When things go out of style, later generations may think they know better.”
He said of the objects that the V&A has disposed of for decades: “It is absolutely terrible in retrospect. It started happening from the 1920s. They regularly got rid of things that would now be considered really important.”
A 2003 report from the Conference of National Museum Directors lamented the loss of V&A artifacts, such as a set of 18th-century giltwood chairs sold in 1949: “They were purchased by the then King of Libya and turned into picture frames. mirrors and stools. This was a decision we bitterly regretted when it was later discovered that the chairs… belonged to a set commissioned by the Venetian Doge Paolo Renier (1710-79).”
The V&A said: “The V&A’s collection priorities have changed over the last century. Historically, in rare cases, museum objects have been discarded in specific circumstances: our archival records dating back to the 1960s show that the ‘Vase of Dreams’…was deemed ‘irrelevant’ to Bethnal Green. [branch of the V&A]where he was staying.”
