I don’t know if this goes in IMHO or GQ, but I’m just going to leave it in IMHO for now.
As I am wont to do every time I visit New York City, I spent a couple of hours at The Frick Collection today. By far, my absolute piece there is “Lady Hamilton” by George Romney. I cannot help but smile when I look at her. I literally feel like the world is a better place because she once lived in it.
Just a little background: The Frick Collection large, permanent exhibition of art from some legendary artists. Vermeer. Rembrand. Gerard van Spaendonck. Hans Holbein. Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. The display is permanent.
But I was thinking tonight, what if I’m a billionaire and I wanted to buy the Lady Hamilton and own it privately? Is there a point where any museum simply can’t turn down the pornographic amounts of money I throw at them? Would the government step in and block the transaction, citing a “national treasure?”
This is going to vary from country to country and museum to museum, but some museums have some kind of stipulation in their charter which doesn’t allow them to sell stuff. The British Museum, for example, cannot sell or give away anything at all in its collection, which is one of the reasons it cites for not giving the Elgin marbles back to Greece.
I presume some museums sell off some works to raise funds, but not many are going to sell their feature pieces. Perhaps they’d sell you the Romney on the proviso you agree to give it back to them on permanent loan.
Anyway, there’s plenty of major works still in private hands which come up for sale now and then. Just go hang out in some English stately homes and make them an offer - there’s always an old leaky roof needs fixing.
Museums do sell pieces from time to time. Perhaps they have another, better piece by the same artist. Or museum or collection just needs the money. For example, a few years ago, Thomas Jefferson University sold a Thomas Eakins painting. The general term for this is “deaccessioning.”
Okay, let’s say the OP would be happy with a high-quality reproduction. Would it be (a) legal and (b) feasible to hire someone to create a copy, assuming you got permission (and if so, whose permission would you have to have)?
Maybe you could convince them to give the piece on an “extended loan” to a “private museum”—say, for sixty years, at a tiny but technically staffed and organized “museum” located entirely on your mansion grounds, for a large enough donation?
For anything from the 19th century, it’s both legal and feasible.
It’s even been done: The Arkell Museum in Canajoharie NY and a full-size reproduction of Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch.” It was commissioned by Bartlett Arkell and painted from the original at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam to give Americans a chance to see the painting in its original size* (you don’t get any impression about how big it is from photos). It’s especially interesting in that it was painted before the painting was restored: the actual painting is not a night scene; years of soot and pollution made it seem so, and the Arkell version shows you what it looked like before restoration.
Nearly all museums allow artists to make copies of any out-of-copyright works in their collections, though there usually are restrictions that the copies are smaller or larger than the original.
*Or, rather the size it was when the copy was made. It had been cut down a bit.
Sadly, I think you will have an especially hard time with Lady Hamilton, as it was part of the original estate collected personally by Frick. Romney painted Lady Hamilton A LOT, you might have better luck seeing if a less solvent museum has another one you like (and some is in private collections, too).
Most museums don’t allow you to use paint (or pens) in the building, though. Pencil sketches are usually fine, although as you say there may be size restrictions. I visited the Frick a few months ago and noticed that their sketching policy does not even allow colored pencils, only lead pencils and charcoal. So an artist could make a bunch of sketches while looking at the original painting, but would need to go elsewhere to paint the actual reproduction.
Again this will depend on the gallery. I saw someone painting with oils (and copying a painting) in London’s National Gallery very recently. I presume you need permission first.
The painting the OP is interested in belongs to the Frick, so the Frick’s policy is the one that would apply there.
The National Gallery’s website says that you can request permission to use paint there, but there’s nothing like that in the Frick’s sketching policy. Since the Frick is housed in the old Frick mansion and contains a lot of valuable antique furniture and decorations in addition to the paintings and sculptures, I would guess that they are even more concerned about spills and splashes than most museums.
I know of an artist who does colored pencil sketches of famous works and sells them for less than $100. I’m assuming everything he draws is in the public domain and therefore everything is above board.
I just googled Lady Hamilton. I’ve never noticed her painting in the Frick- if anything I would have been distracted by the artist’s name- but a Google search turned up pages worth of paintings of this woman so surely you could get a reproduction. Or make a collage of her
If you like that particular painting, you can go to a website like art.com and buy a print of it. They have giclee prints starting at $40 (for 12" x 16") or printed on a stretched canvas at $275 (for 30" x 36.5"), with various other options in between those.
