Landseer's 'Monarch of the Glen' to be sold
November 7 2016
Picture: BBC
One of Scotland's most famous paintings is to be sold in London next month, for an estimated £10m. The picture is owned by the drinks maker, Diageo, and has been on loan to the National Museum of Scotland for the last 17 years.
In The Guardian, Ian Jack says that Diageo should have gifted the painting to the National Gallery of Scotland:
[...] what needs to happen is a small act of corporate generosity – a token of gratitude to the climate, the landscape and the society that enabled both the picture to be painted and the fortunes of its present owners, the drinks business Diageo, to be made.
Landseer and the modern whisky industry achieved their early success around the same time. The painter, the son of an engraver, was a Londoner who made his first visit to Scotland in 1824, aged 22. A year earlier, the British government had passed the Excise Act, which by legalising whisky distilling in exchange for a £10 licence gave the business a respectability that illicit stills and smuggling had denied it. Technical developments in the same decade made production more reliable, with a consistent quality of spirit. Sold now in branded casks and bottles, the sales of Scottish whisky took off in England and then the empire. By the end of the 19th century, after the phylloxera epidemic ruined French vineyards (and consequently the trade in cognac as well as wine), it had become a fashionable drink around the world.
What helped sell scotch was the vogue for Scotland and wild Scottish things, which no painter did more to promote than Landseer.
I don't agree that Diageo should give this picture away. But I do challenge the logic behind the sale. Diageo say they no longer have a purpose for the picture, which may be so on a narrow definition of use, but they do sell more than twenty types of whisky, including 25,000 bottles of Jonnie Walker every hour. Is there no way Landseer's picture, if used more creatively, fits their purpose? It's not as if they need the money - last year, they made a profit of over £3 billion. The point is, if the picture is bought by an overseas buyer, and leaves Scotland forever, Diageo will suffer more than £10m in adverse publicity. Why risk it?
