On Top of a Leonardo Headache, the Prado Turned Down the Louvre’s Request to Borrow Three El Grecos

The Louvre has had an exceptionally tough year securing star
loans from its peers. The Paris museum had hoped to borrow three
key works by El Greco from the Prado, but the Madrid museum
declined the request, the Spanish newspaper El País
reports.

The Louvre learned in June that its El Greco show would have
some gaps. The Paris museum has co-organized “Greco,” which is due
to open at the Grand Palais next week, with the Art Institute of
Chicago, where it is due to head next spring. Last week, it emerged
that the Prado had turned down the request for the three paintings
during the summer, citing a loan moratorium during its bicentenary
year. The fact of the matter is sure to sting on top of a political
headache securing loans from Italy for its blockbuster Leonardo
show.

The Louvre had put in a request to borrow three paintings by the
Crete-born, Toledo-based artist Domenikos Theotokopoulos, who is
best known as El Greco. The works were A Fable,
Flight into Egypt, and The Trinity. The
Paris iteration of the exhibition, the largest-ever retrospective
on the artist in France, will include 75 masterworks, showing
his “wild and unclassifiable genius,” according to a statement.

But the Prado has agreed on other high-profile international
loans in 2019 despite its self-imposed embargo. El
País points out that it lent The Transit of the
Virgin (1462) by Andrea Mantegna to London’s National Gallery
for a special exhibition. The work then traveled to the
Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. The National Gallery was also able to
borrow three works by Joaquín Sorolla this summer.

According to the curator of the El Greco exhibition, Guillaume
Kientz, the Prado was unequivocal in denying the request.
“Symbolically, I would have liked the Prado to join the adventure
as well. We insisted as much as we could,” he told El
Pais. “If they had changed their minds later, we would
have found a solution, but it didn’t happen.” Keintz was head
of Spanish painting at the Louvre before he joined the Kimbell in
Fort Worth, Texas, in January. A spokesperson for the Grand
Palais declined artnet News’s request for further comment.

Loan negotiations between major museums are typically brokered
in private, but the Paris museum has endured a string of problems
in public. Last week, an Italian court blocked
the loan of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing Vitruvian
man. Then, there is the saga over Salvator Mundi,
which at one point seemed destined for the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
There was some good news last month: The French and Italian
government finally sealed a deal so that Leonardo paintings will
head to Paris this fall from Italian museums, while Raphaels travel
will travel from France to Italy next year.

The El Greco show in Paris is due to travel to the Art Institute
of Chicago in March 2020. It is unclear whether the US art museum
may have better luck than the Louvre in securing the missing works.
artnet News reached out to the US museum to ask, but did not hear
back from publishing time.

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Down the Louvre’s Request to Borrow Three El Grecos appeared
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