During their 170 years in Leicester the Casta paintings have not been on public display, they have been subject to trial and test conservation techniques (incomplete), it is assumed that they were used as training aides for the in house conservation studios that the museums had decades ago. They also have white chalk crosses marked on the reverse of their frames, and three of them also have the word DUMP written in unknown handwriting, also in white chalk. Leicester’s fine art collection has never been subjected to a formal collection review but at some point in the past this indicates that these paintings may have been marked for disposal.     

Leicester Museum & Art Gallery is an accredited museum and we would not destroy, nor prepare any of our collection for destruction, we follow the Museum Associations code of ethics for collections disposal. Disposal, in simplified terms, is the process of formally removing an object from a museum’s collection to be donated to another appropriate alternative collection.