I can tell you how well the Reinhart collection feels at home in the Courtauld, because I emerged from the exhibition space into the main collection without realising, and it was only when I was thinking how odd it was that the two men seem to have acquired copies of the same pictures that it occurred to me that I was back in Samuel Courtauld’s space.
And there are a couple of Van Goghs – one, a familiar depiction of the outside of his asylum, another, altogether unfamiliar, of the place from the inside, showing introspective poor men sitting in their dormitory, a crucifix on the wall, with a couple of faceless nuns doing the work.
So we find with the Courtauld Gallery, which is based on the collection of Samuel Courtauld and is one of the loveliest collections in London.
There are minor works by masters – a fluid sketch in paint for Don Quixote by Daumier (there’s another in the permanent collection just round the corner); and a striking depiction by Goya of… three salmon steaks (which, at a push, can be seen as an allegory of the cost of war).
Reinhart however was a patriotic resident of Winterthur where his gallery is based, and for those of us who haven’t had the opportunity of making it there, some but of the collection – from Goya to the Impressionists - has come here while the gallery is being refurbished.
