Art: Out of the Basement

If there are 400 things that London's progressive Tate Gallery can't abide, they are the pictures and sculptures that for the past 52 years have been drifting in from the bequest of wealthy Victorian Sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey. In that time, the unhappy custodians of the Tate have willy-nilly acquired tons and acres of lowing kine, rearing horses, languorous ladies, idyllic landscapes and storm-beset ships-of-the-line.

Except for about 30 pieces (including an Epstein bust and a sprinkling of Pre-Raphaelites), the Tate has resolutely packed them off to the cellar. That, says the gallery's pastel-shirted Director John Rothenstein, is where they belong.

Probably nothing...

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