This article is taken from the December-January 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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Ronald Lauder proclaimed that as a young collector, the two words which excited him the most when visiting an art exhibition were “private collection”.

Private collections, unlike most public or state collections, present the tantalising prospect that works might become available for sale at some time in the future, perhaps brought to auction by the art market drivers of death, debt or divorce.

The high-minded social, educational and cultural ideals of public museums seem at odds with the art market, no matter how much commercial art galleries try to ape the museum. Is it really possible to reconcile or even subdue mammon with the muse? At least to start with, the two must go hand-in-hand.

In order to build a collection, museums must operate in close contact with the commercial branch of the art market, maintaining and developing beneficial relations with dealers, collectors and their whims in the hope, expectation or promise that select works will come to rest at the museum.

Thus, munificent millionaires share their treasures with the world, burnishing their reputations as collectors. Could it work in the other direction? Should a museum be a venue for the display of works of art for sale?

Museums mount loan exhibitions, and so do commercial galleries, usually showing works owned by the gallery outright (or in shares) alongside loaned private works which, if sold, earn a commission.

For many this may be tantamount to angels dancing on a pinhead

Yet when loans from public collections are brought into the commercial space for exhibition, conflicts emerge: if an important loan work from a charity or public collection happens to be placed near or next to those for sale, the loaned work could give an impression of respectability, even legitimacy or authenticity to other works available for sale. For many this may be tantamount to angels dancing on a pinhead, especially as almost all works were at one point or another in their history bought and sold.

But what about the reverse situation: such as when a respectable public gallery mounts a worthy and scholarly exhibition with loans from public and private collections, some of which are de facto for sale? Has any ethical boundary been crossed?

Last year Tate Britain mounted a Sarah Lucas retrospective. Lucas’ dealer Sadie Coles put out a press release about the exhibition which did not refer to the gallery’s agency or involvement.

It was surely a matter of pride that works by an artist represented by the gallery were to be featured in Britain’s premier publicly-funded contemporary art space. Tate did acknowledge the importance of Sadie Coles’ gallery to Lucas’ work by organising a discussion with the artist and the gallerist, but other institutions seem content to look the other way.

At what point is it acceptable for a national, taxpayer-funded institution to provide the stage and publicity for art which may be for sale?

Earlier this year the Chateau de Chantilly in France mounted an exhibition which considered the furniture of the 18th century Parisian nobleman and collector, Ange-Laurent de Lalive de Jully, one of the first patrons of the new neo-classical style.

Chantilly owns his famous writing desk and cartonnier, and this exhibition also included a rare shells display case or coquillier which reputedly belongs to the renowned Paris dealer Galerie Steinitz.

It was bought at the Ann and Gordon Getty sale in Christie’s New York in October 2022 for $554,400, a price which reflected both its distinguished ownership history and altered condition. Was it now also for sale? Regardless of that possibility, no mention was made by Chantilly of the crucial later alterations (a sloping glazed display case on top was removed).

Through the summer, Chantilly also mounted an exhibition on the French cabinet-maker André-Charles Boulle, one of the great stars of French decorative arts. Included in the exhibition were some works which were, according to the furniture conservator Yannick Chastang, available for sale through Parisian dealers.

One piece was bought in 2017 and is now apparently offered for sale at €3.2m. The increase in price was apparently justified by a controversial attribution to Boulle, and a revised dating.

The dealers must be delighted that a French public institution is content to give them a prominent, historic and respected place from which to offer their wares.

No doubt there will be generous donations from prestigious dealers in future, as French state cultural institutions are under financial pressure as never before.

But must one cross an ethical Rubicon to keep the lights on? And will other dealers make the most of the state’s weakness or ignorance?