I like to go through a museum/exhibit as though I'm shopping...choosing the one piece that I'd love to have in my home.

And I visit antiques markets, for the most part, like I'm at a museum!

Maybe at someplace like the Musee d'Orsay, where much of the art is "pretty". My most recent trip was to Italy, and so many of the paitings were of martyred saints....sorry, but I would not like any of those in my home, no matter how remarkable the work.

Yes, I do the mad millionnaire bit and decide what I want the international gang to steal for me to gloat at in my personal gallery.
I want Botticelli's "Venus and Mars" from the National Gallery, a couple of the Queen's Canalettos, a few of the Queen's Leonardo drawings and a rather nice little rock crystal vase from the V and A.
The British Museum has a lovely little Egyptian hawk and I'll also have that cat with ear-rings. I have a reproduction, but the original would be better.
My wants are quite modest.

I tend toward Bonnard, Vuillard, Matisse and the post-impressionists. I would go for lots of color, bourgeois dining rooms and gardens generally, but nothing too famous. I can't think of anything more garish than having Monet's Waterlilies in my living room!

I got really into doing this while researching the thefts at the Gardener Museum in Boston. It is kind of fun to pick something that you love and think of how to Thomas Crown it out of there. That said, the pieces that most move me I would never even think of taking. . . too much conscience about leaving others without.

My tendency has been, depending on the museum, to go back to my favorites and sit and stare at them.

I've never really dreamed about having any of them for myself although I can understand that completely.

The one I like to most would take a moving van to remove so no fantasies about that but like an oriental rug, some of these things "go" with everything.

When we visit contemporary art exhibitions in commercial galleries, DH & I always discuss "which one we'd have" - even if the works are way out of our league

can't say that's the way i look at it, but that is a very interesting way of seeing what's there. i try to look from a historical p.o.v. or if the wrok is modern, from a psychological viewpoint, although the latter is sometimes either impossible or improbable. anything, obviously, that gives a person insight into a work of art is a very **good** method for him or her. i imagine the artists would prefer to have their work looked at as you do, because alot of it is or was originally intended for ornamentation or education. interesting post, cimbrone.

I feel as if they are all mine....I'm just letting the world borrow them!!!

Hahaha, I've done that!

There was a nice story in the Glasgow Herald last week, in connection with the Queen visiting the newly refurbished Kelvingrove Gallery (owned by the city). A little old lady outside said "they say the Queen's got the best art collection in the world - well, mine's better".

I do, sometimes. There's a Degas at the Met that I want. And I'd take just about any Monet at Marmottan if I had the wall space.

But someone mentioned going back and staring at favorites. I tend to enter a room in a museum, expecting a "favorite" to be there waiting for me and just break into a huge grin, like seeing an old friend again. Must look like an idiot to those who don't "get" art, but so what?

Laclaire, did you see the documentary/movie "Stolen"? It was playing at the MFA in Boston and interviewed the investigators and some of the suspects in the Gardner case. Really riveting, but leads me to believe this will remain unsolved now that the professional investigator has passed on.

This thread reminds me of a story Alan Bennett tells in his diaries (in his most recent collection, Untold Stories). Some years ago, Sir Denis Mahon, the collector of Italian art, lent several of his paintings to the National Gallery in London for an exhibit. Sir Denis (who was then in his 80's) went to the exhibit several times, and when he looked at the paintings he got very close to them, as he was probably accustomed to doing when they weren't on public display. Finally one of the guards went up to him and said something like, "I have my eye on you -- you've been getting much too close to the paintings." Sir Denis went straight to the head of the National Gallery and commended the guard for his diligence.

Hmmmm...I'm the opposite: I shop as if I'm touring a museum. (Though somehow my credit card statement always looks like I bought a Picasso.)

I confess. If there is something I fall in love with I go to the museum store and look to see if there is an affordable print available. Lacking that, I buy postcards. On my wall at home I have three Escher's, one Monet, and one Vermeer. Love em!

amyb- I definitely need to see that! I was obsessed with the case!

Cimbrone, I agree with your taste in 19th c. French art, btw. I'd add in Degas (the horses, but most especially the Cotton Exchange, rather than the ballet ones) and some Manet as well. A nice Vuillard would really make a room!

Hi noe847,

If you like that kind of thing as well, google "Georges D'Espagnat". His stuff is exquisite. Makes me downright covetous!

For years I've kept a list of what I would have someone steal (oops--borrow) for me when I am rich and famous. Of course, I'd also need a huge house and estate for all the stuff...