Artwork loans between institutions
An arrangement by which a museum or collector entrusts a work to another institution for an exhibition, governed by an agreement setting value, transport, courier, display conditions and insurance.
Major exhibitions rest on dozens of loans, each governed by an agreement. The lender sets the work's insurance value, often non-negotiable, the conditions of climate, light and security, the transport method, and the presence of a courier who accompanies the work throughout. The borrower undertakes to insure the work nail to nail, either through its own policy or through a state indemnity where the country offers one, and provides a facility report. The sum of agreed values in an exhibition can reach billions, concentrated for months in one building and for a few hours in one truck or plane, hence rules that forbid shipping certain major works together. For the insurer, a loan combines transport, handling, public display and accumulation risks.
For the Rijksmuseum's Vermeer exhibition in Amsterdam, from February 10 to June 4, 2023, twenty-eight of the painter's thirty-seven known paintings were brought together through loans from collections worldwide, each under its own loan agreement setting the work's value, its courier arrangements and its coverage.
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