It was good and not so good that Te Papa is calling for a new stand-alone National Art Gallery. It means the idea of amalgamating art collections with natural and human history ones in a single institution would be abandoned. That concept, as predicted, has meant one of those subjects, in this case art, got buried.
But the new proposal means continuing the single-site national institutional model instead of moving to a multi-site national service - the only way to achieve equity and efficiency.
Another curate's egg is a new book with an unusual focus which is important for our visual arts. It has flaws but covers ground not ventured into so deeply before and shows possibilities.
Mary Kisler's Angels & Aristocrats: Early European Art in New Zealand Public Collections* is only the second book on this subject and goes into considerably more detail than its predecessor. That was Peter Tomory and Robert Gaston's 1989 Summary Catalogue European Paintings Before 1800 in Australian and New Zealand Public Collections.
It reviewed New Zealand's old master paintings together with Australia's and is very useful. But the "summary" of the title indicates not only its lack of comprehensiveness but also the absence of real discussion of the numerous issues of authenticity and identification which such studies inevitably traverse. Ms Kisler's book goes more deeply into its more limited field.
There are publications which cover parts of the same ground, such as my 1990 Treasures of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, usefully updated in 2009 by Beloved: Works from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, with several contributors.
But Ms Kisler's book is specifically focused on European old master paintings and reviews the collections in Auckland, Wanganui, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. There are works of this sort in some other public institutions but the great majority are in the five she covers.
My concerns are that there are rather too many mistakes and sometimes a lack of real discussion. Some of the mistakes are trivial, others less so.
Shock horror, in the footnotes and the bibliography, p388, my name is misspelt. At p26 William Mathew Hodgkins died in 1898 not 1895. At p27 the Dunedin Public Art Gallery moved to the Octagon in 1996, not 1990. At p148 the Allied invasion of Italy was in 1943 not 1945. At p109 the Gassel was not bought by the de Beers in 1982, it was given to the gallery by them then.
At p26, again, Lady McLean did not live "at Castlerock estate in Lumsden, near Oamaru". She lived at what is now 17 Elder St, Dunedin. Ms Kisler has confused Sir George McLean, Lady McLean's husband, with the Hon John McLean of Redcastle, Oamaru and also Redcastle with Castlerock Station, near Lumsden, not so far from Gore, both in Southland.
At p28 Mrs Pearse was not the Dunedin gallery's curator before being appointed director in 1946. She was appointed curator, then the senior post, in 1946 and was later restyled director. And on the same page Esmond de Beer bought works with his own and his sister's money, which they then gave to the gallery. He didn't simply acquire them "through his administrations on the gallery's behalf in London".
This is a serious misunderstanding because the de Beers are, by a country mile, the most substantial contributors to New Zealand's present old master collections and it is clear Ms Kisler has not grasped the scale of their generosity.
About this point the mistakes start to make one wonder about the integrity of the whole text. That is a pity because it is attempting something really worthwhile.
At p77 Ms Kisler gives Dunedin's Birth of the Saviour as attributed to Bartholomaus Bruyn, where in Beloved I gave it to his studio. I was following an overseas specialist who might be wrong, but Ms Kisler gives no reason for the change.
At p356 she has Dunedin's scantily clad Saint John ... as Circle of Francesco Cozza where formerly it was attributed to Bartolomeo Schedoni. She may have a good reason for the change but doesn't even tell us there has been one.
At p267 she gives Dunedin's Cornelius Johnson as Portrait of a Woman in parallel with Beloved's change in the identification of the sitter and offers a reason. But neither text mentions the countervailing argument for supposing it's Queen Henrietta Maria.
Martin Kemp's book on the supposed new Leonardo similarly doesn't mention, let alone discuss, some opposing views.
It follows a dishonourable tradition in art history and detracts from what in Ms Kisler's case is otherwise an admirable book.
*Angels & Aristocrats, Early European Art in New Zealand Public Collections, by Mary Kisler, Godwit, RRP $75.
• Peter Entwisle is a Dunedin curator, historian and writer.
