Flying Sunflowers: the logistical secrets of the NGA’s Botticelli to Van Gogh blockbuster

Over the previous two months, a discreet convoy of unmarked vehicles has been traversing the 290km stretch of the Hume Highway between Sydney and Canberra.

They in all probability had an Australian federal police escort, however we will’t say for positive. The safety preparations for the transportation of the most priceless assortment of artworks to attain Australian shores has been cloaked in secrecy.

All the director of the National Gallery of Australia, Nick Mitzevich, would inform Guardian Australia was that there was “heightened security” to transport 61 priceless works from the National Gallery in London to Canberra over many weeks earlier this 12 months.

“We worked with local authorities and international authorities to ensure that the highest of security levels were applied to these shipments,” he stated.

On 5 March, the NGA’s Botticelli to Van Gogh exhibition opens, bringing the UK’s National Gallery treasures – together with Rembrandt’s self portrait (age 34), Botticelli’s Scenes from the Early Life of St Zenobius, and Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers – to Australia for the first time.

The challenge has been greater than 4 years in the making, with negotiations already nicely below means earlier than Mitzevich took over directorship of the NGA from Gerard Vaughan in early 2018.

Then Covid-19 hit.

Over the previous two weeks, NGA curators and conservationists have been cautiously unpacking the priceless works and starting the meticulous course of of inspecting and hanging the photos below fixed vigilance of the National Gallery in London by way of stay streaming.

Under regular circumstances a staff of conservators would have chaperoned the Botticellis, Titians, Rembrandts, Vermeers, El Grecos, Velázquezs, Goyas, Turners, Constables, Van Dycks, Gainsboroughs, Renoirs, Cézannes, Monets, Gauguins and Van Goghs in individual. Pandemic restrictions meant the artworks had to journey unaccompanied, every in its personal hermetically sealed, custom-made crate.

Like any overly cautious and arguably pessimistic household with a practice of all the time travelling on separate planes (sports activities historical past is plagued by aviation tragedies wiping out total groups), the 61 masterpieces didn’t all journey on the identical London to Sydney flight.

The work have been arriving in a gradual stream of separate cargo planes since January.

“It’s part of the risk mitigation measures,” Mitzevich informed the Guardian. “I’m sure you can understand why I’m not at liberty to talk about how many shipments there are when they’re coming in, but they’re over an extended period of time to really ensure that we mitigate any risks.”

When a 500-year-old Botticelli or Vermeer takes to the skies, it doesn’t simply fly incognito. It should even be insulated after which hibernate throughout and after the lengthy haul.

Bubble wrap will merely not suffice. Conservators at the National Gallery in London swathe every work in acid-free materials – paper-based or fabric-based, relying on the particular person portray’s requirement – earlier than sliding every masterpiece into its personal laser-cut, form-fitting timber pod, insulating the work from as a lot vibration as doable throughout transportation. Works with out protecting glass are glazed beforehand.

Once in Australia, every unbolted crate is transported by highway in a climate-controlled truck earlier than coming into a interval of acclimatisation in the nation’s capital – a sort of resort quarantine for contemporary antiquities.

On 15 February, NGA employees started unbolting the pods. On 22 February, Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers was roused from its slumber.

“There was such an anticipation around this work that when we actually opened it, everyone became quite emotional,” the exhibition’s coordinating curator, Sally Foster, informed the Guardian.

“When you actually see it in the flesh, when you see how he’s painted it, it is such an extraordinary work … when we opened that crate, that really was a moment.”

This sort of challenge is pricey. As with all travelling exhibitions of related scale, the prohibitive insurance coverage prices have been met by the federal authorities’s indemnity scheme.

The NGA expects to cowl the excellent prices of labour and transportation between ticketing, company sponsorship and the proceeds from a concerted drive for personal philanthropy that has been operating for the previous 4 years.

At about $28.00 for the standard grownup admission – and with Covid-19 social distancing restrictions limiting the quantity of viewers at any given time throughout the exhibition’s three-month exhibiting in Canberra – Mitzevich stated he nonetheless hoped the blockbuster would break even.

He witnessed Sunflowers being held on the NGA’s partitions.

“It was a very exciting moment because finally we had that work on the wall and we could see its luminescence. We could see the brushstrokes of the artist, taking pride of place in our gallery space.”

• Botticelli to Van Gogh is exhibiting at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, from 5 March