Museum director ‘reunited’ with Venus and Mars Renaissance painting

A museum director is being “reunited” with a Renaissance painting which is being borrowed for the first time from the National Gallery.

Luke Syson, director at the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University, used to work at the National Gallery where he cared for the Venus and Mars piece by Sandro Botticelli.

The piece will be on display from Friday 10 May to Tuesday 10 September in Cambridge in celebration of the National Gallery’s 200th birthday.

He said: “It’s not just for people that already know and love Bocelli. We are showing a picture that can really make it about them but also about now.”

This is the first time in 150 years since its acquisition in 1874, that the painting has left the National Gallery and will be seen by new audiences outside of London.

Mr Syson said: “I used to work at the National Gallery… for me this is something of a reunion which for me makes it a particularly nice part of the story.

“It gives the opportunity for museums across the country to give a new context, ask new questions bring new audiences and visitors to see works that are some of the most celebrated in the world.”

He said the mystery and beauty of the painting was as “compelling as any great poem”.

“It’s as close to a poem in paint as you can get… like lots of poetry it doesn’t tell one clear storyy, it suggests all sorts of possibilities,” he said.

The painting is one of 12 paintings from the National Gallery’s collection to go on display at museums and galleries across the United Kingdom.

He said: “Objects belong to the moment they are born but then they belong to every period afterwards and what we bring to them is just as important as what the artists intended.”