Girl with a Pearl Earring is one of those iconic pieces that draws visitors in their hordes. Some institutions rely on such pieces as vital sources of revenue – via admission fees, or spends in the cafés and gift shops, where many of these famed artworks are the subject for ‘merch’.
So what happens when those famed paintings, aka your Mona Lisa by da Vinci, Edvard Munch’s The Scream or Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, needs to take a break from display for conservation and maintenance or to go on tour?
