Brian Sewell calls for public galleries to sell the family silver

Brian Sewell, the bullshit detector whose condemnation of any artist's work has long been looked upon as the art world's equivalent of the ASBO for 'cool' status, has attacked local public galleries for hanging on to collections which could be partly sold off to fund services, now under threat by spending cuts. He singled out Bath and North Somerset for a particular kicking: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-11837414

and said of Bath's Victoria Art Gallery: "I've seen it described as a lucky dip.

'You might argue that you could take anything from it and no-one would notice."

Jon Benington, manager of the gallery, defended its collection, saying: "The art collections are there to inform, to educate, to inspire.

'Once they're gone, they're gone forever. You can't bring them back."

The question must be though: Who will buy these works? Many of the individual paintings in question are hack anecdotal works or demotic 'classical' fantasies, strictly of interest only to art historians with a special interest in upwardly mobile Victorians. But their value and use increases when they are part of collections; even if some of those collections are arbritrary, held together only by their shared provenance.