A Belgian Museum Must Return $3.9 Million in Unused Tickets After Its Once-in-a-Lifetime Jan Van Eyck Blockbuster Got Cut Short by Coronavirus

Museums across Belgium are preparing to
reopen beginning on May 18, but at least one blockbuster show has
become a casualty of the global health crisis: “Van Eyck: An Optical
Revolution” will not return to the Museum of Fine Arts in
Ghent.

The show, which opened February 1, was scheduled to remain
on view only through April 29, and will not be extended to take
into account the museum’s reopening date.

The reality of the situation became clear to the show’s
organizers on April 16, when the country announced that museums
would have to remain closed until at least early May.

“From that moment, it was clear that it would be impossible to
reopen the exhibition,” Steven Heyse, chief of staff for Ghent’s
deputy mayor of culture, told Artnet News in an email, citing the
difficulties in “renegotiating loans, renewing insurances policies,
security assignments, etc.”

In the time that the exhibition was on view, 129,000 visitors
passed through the museum’s doors. But an additional 144,000 art
lovers had already bought tickets, according to the Art
Newspaper.

With admission priced at €25 ($27), the total cost of
reimbursement could be as high as €3.6 million ($3.9
million). “The impact is currently not yet fully assessable,”
Heyse said.

The museum is working with its insurance company to issue
refunds to ticket holders, and will be contacting those who
purchased admission.

The show’s truncated run comes as a major blow to the
institution, which spent four years planning the exhibition,
widely billed as a
“once-in-a-lifetime
experience.”

Only around 20 autographs works by Jan van Eyck are known to exist, and the
museum had managed to pull together 13 of them for the occasion,
making the show the largest-ever dedicated to the Flemish Old
Master. Altogether, 73 collections loans objects for the
show. It was the centerpiece of a citywide theme year,
“OMG! Van Eyck was here,” now extended
through spring 2021.

“Never say never, but it will be incredibly hard to realize this
once again,” Heyse said.

The core of the show, which also included works from the
artist’s studio, copies of his lost works, and other historic
paintings, was the Ghent Altarpiece from St. Bavo’s
Cathedral. Completed by the artist and his brother, Hubert Van
Eyck, in 1432, it was once stolen by Nazis, and one panel remains
missing.

Most recently, the Ghent Altarpiece was the subject of a
eight-year conservation project.
The last phase took three years, cost €2.2 million ($2.44 million),
and was completed in
December.

The post A Belgian Museum Must Return $3.9 Million in Unused
Tickets After Its Once-in-a-Lifetime Jan Van Eyck Blockbuster Got
Cut Short by Coronavirus appeared first on artnet
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