Will Work For Monet

Krefeld near Cologne is not a town often in the national gaze. But suddenly it finds itself drenched in unwelcome limelight over a painting by the French impressionist master of which it has been the quietly proud and uncontroversial owner for almost exactly a century, since 1907.

Until the roof began to leak.

The idea of selling the pride of the collection to preserve the rest has caused outrage among the good and the great.

"Would anyone ever hit on the idea of selling off the trolley cars to repair a streetcar network or flog the books in a library to repair the roof?" said Michael Eissenhauer, president of the Federation of German Museums.

"Pandora's box has been opened"

Bernd Lindemann, head of Berlin's prestigious Gemäldegalerie art gallery, conjured up a vision worthy of the Surrealist school.

"If you push the idea to its conclusion you end up with the frightening notion of a completely renovated gallery with nothing in it to put on show," said Lindemann.

Olaf Zimmermann of the hallowed German Cultural Council summed it up in doom-laden tones: "A Pandora's box has been opened."

The canvas, one of a series by Monet depicting the Houses of Parliament in London ("Maisons du parlement à Londres"), is on show at Krefeld's Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, which urgently needs five million euros ($6.3 million) for major repairs and renovation.

"The roof is leaking and the air conditioning has to be completely replaced," said Roland Schneider, head of the culture department at city hall. "It was so hot this July we had to take down some of the paintings on exhibition and put them into storage."

Painting worth more than repairs

The Monet is valued at between 18 and 20 millions euros ($23 to 25 million), much more than needed to carry out repairs.

However the gallery, dating from 1899, has not been renovated since the 1960s and staff dream not only of much-needed repairs, but of state-of-the-art modernization with more exhibition space, all entailing a budget of an estimated 11 million euros.

"This is a violation of an absolute taboo," said Eissenhauer. "If we fritter away our cultural heritage, how will we preserve our cultural identity?"

Overwhelmed by the unexpected barrage of protest, the city hall in Krefeld has beaten a hasty retreat, trying to appease enraged culture czars with assurances that the Monet sale must first be approved by the regional authorities of North Rhine-Westphalia, that it is in any case no more than an "idea" at this stage, and that nothing so far has been decided.

More museum visitors than ever

The town council itself is divided over the issue. The opposition Social Democrats and Greens are against the sale, the free market liberal Free Democrats are in favor of it.

Meanwhile the Christian Democratic mayor, Gregor Kathstede, hasn't said what he prefers.

"We would have liked to ponder the matter calmly, away from all the media pressures," said Roland Schneider of city hall's culture department.

Yet there is an upside to all this sudden stress in otherwise quiet Krefeld. The media attention has put the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum -- annual average visitor figures hitherto 20,000 to 45,000 -- in the limelight as never before, and the number of visitors curious about the overlooked Monet has leapt suddenly and gratifyingly to quite unprecedented levels.