Sounds like a funny line from the art heist movie The Thomas Crown Affair but "Temporäre Dauerleihgabe" is written on the labels at several exhibits in the Villa Stuck museum in Munich, Germany.
The art graced by these labels is, I am sorry to say, less remarkable than the labels.
The pieces are neo-realistic classic mythology, a Sphinx, a fuzzy Pan, not quite as true to the imagined original as Victorian, yet not bold enough to appeal to the modernists of the early 20th century.
But the labels represent one of my favorite items in museums, the small surprises that tell more about the people who made the museum than the glossy brochures or nicely designed web sites.
I tend to find these small things in small museums. The reason for this, I imagine, is their lack of resources and staff. They do not have dozens or hundreds of highly trained specialists who watch over every detail, so the personality of a curator can shine through.
That can throw you off or be outright disturbing.
As in the case of this small military museum where you will find a can, a tobacco or altoid size can with dirt.
From Stalingrad.
The aspect of the museum as a shrine.
Sometimes you think or hope the curator is sending a wink. For example, at the Mütter Museum in Philadephia. One of the less glamorous exhibits is a cabinet with stacked pull-out trays, and on the trays are objects that people swallowed and then died of. Hundreds of objects.
One of these objects, in the top tray, is a bottle cap/button sized round metal item prominently displaying, right on it, a warning: Danger, do not swallow.
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