Museum Partnerships
William Holman Hunt's 'The Scapegoat', loaned to the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent in autumn 2007
Loans from the collections of National Museums Liverpool can be made on a long or short-term basis. Short-term loans are normally for research purposes or for inclusion in specific temporary exhibitions. Items on long-term loan are tend to be included in permanent displays.
Our standard conditions for loan and policy are set out in our Loans Policy and this sets out in detail the types of loans that we make and the conditions that we normally ask a lender to provide.
Here are some general guidelines that may be useful if you are considering requesting a loan from National Museums Liverpool.
The more time that you give us, the greater chance you have of getting the loan. We normally ask for six months notice for UK loans and nine months for overseas. This allows us enough time to carry out the enquiries and checks that we have to make prior to a loan and to prepare the item.
Initial enquiries may be made to the curator of the relevant collection, or the registrar. When you are ready to make a formal request, a letter should be sent to the relevant divisional Director, as listed in Appendix 3 of the Loans Policy.
To allow us to reach a decision about the loan, do include the reasons why you want to borrow the item: this may include information about exhibition content and status, audience development plans, learning programmes or any particular networks that your organisation is part of. If you can, include precise dates for the start and end of the loan.
Send a completed copy of the UK Registrar Group Standard Facilities Report and any environmental charts for the area where the items will be displayed. The charts should be for the corresponding period of the loan (e.g. if the loan runs from March – June 2008, then send charts for March - June 2007). The UK Registrar Group Display Case questionnaire should also be sent if the item is to be cased.
At a later date, we will also ask you to complete the UK Registrar Group Security Supplement, so be prepared!
Please be honest about conditions in your venue and our team of registrars and conservators will do their best to work with you to resolve any issues.
National Museums Liverpool does not charge for administering loans or for preparation and packing, but we do expect the borrower to bear the cost of any crating, transport, and insurance required for loan. Decisions about couriers are made on a case-by-case basis and if it is felt that a courier is necessary, then we would expect the borrower to pay for their travel, accommodation (if applicable) and subsistence costs.
Our full Outwards loans policy is also available on this website.
We have a number of long term loans to international, national and regional museums and other centres. In the last financial year ( 2006-07) we made long term loans to 97 venues UK venues and 8 overseas.
Examples of such loan arrangements are:
We also make a number of short term loans for exhibitions.
Recent examples include a number of loans from across our collections, for the exhibition Art Treasures in Manchester: 150 years on, Manchester Art Gallery (6 October 2007- 27 January 2008) and Phantasmagoria: Escapism and Reality in Victorian England at Grosvenor Museum in Chester (20 October 2007 -6 January 2008).
Various objects from our collections have gone on display across the city centre and occasionally further afield as part of the Museum of Liverpool on the road project. Find out more about current and previous loans on the 'on the road' web pages.
The Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent has lent us works by the Belgian painter James Ensor (1860 – 1949 ) for the exhibition Masquerade: the work of James Ensor at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in 2007. The works were an exchange for our loan of the famous Pre-Raphaelite painting 'The Scapegoat' to Ghent in autumn 2007.