Titian "Lady" Can't Break the Norton Simon Glass Ceiling

Titian's Lady in White (c. 1561), on view at the Norton Simon Museum through March 25, is fantastic. Not so fantastic is that it's being shown behind glass (or acrylic).

The NSM is notorious for glazing its paintings. This helps protect art from dust, touchy kids, and even thieves. But it's bad for anyone who wants to look at the art. Glass produces reflections (as of an EXIT sign and gallery lights in the image above). It darkens the picture, renders faint details invisible, and changes the color balance.

Glazing is a tradeoff, as is everything else in life. But relative to other museums, the NSM veers far on the side of caution. Other museums have valuable paintings too, and they mostly don't glaze them.

Yet other major loans to the NSM have been glazed. Whistler's Mother was when shown in 2015. I was then inclined to think the Musée d'Orsay had required extra protection as a condition for lending an iconic painting.

Titian's Lady is a loan from Dresden's Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. The NSM is showing it in a shadow box frame projecting from the wall. This, I should think, sends a gentle message to keep a respectful distance. The shadow box itself is not glazed. (The Louvre puts the Mona Lisa in a box behind 1.52 inches of glass. Thank goodness no other painting has to deal with that burden of fame.)

Lady in White was previously shown at the Columbus (Ohio) Museum of Art. In Columbus it was shown flat on the wall, no shadow box. I don't know whether it was glazed. I guess it's possible that the painting was sent out glazed for its two-city tour of America's wild, wild west.