My grandaughter is moving into a new house and wanted 'art' for Christmas. I wanted to give her for Christmas a print of the John Singer Sargent portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner that is on display in the Gardner Museum. It was quite controversial in the early 1900s'; her collar wan't up under her chin and her arms were bare. To make matters worse, she was quite pretty. 'Pornography' they said.
I couldn't find it on any of the sites that sell prints. I also checked the Gardner msueum store, no luck. There was an advertisement on the bottom of the page for this print, from Amazon, so I signed up for it. At the end of the purchase session, they said delivery around mid January!!! Came back from grocery shopping yesterday to find a slip in the mailbox; a registered package I'd have to go to the post office to sign for.
I went: it was the print of the portrait. It was mailed from Bulgaria!! The customs form was in cyrillic! Now I know that electronic communication world wide are instantaneous and free. They could probably also sent the image to Bulgaria for printing. And the labor costs would probably be less.
However, I'm of a nasty, suspicions turn of mind. I sorta think that the musuem owns that portrait and if anyone in the US tried to copy it, they'd be in trouble with the law. Sending it out of the country to produce probably avoided this.
I welcome any informed comment on the legality of what went on.
I couldn't find it on any of the sites that sell prints. I also checked the Gardner msueum store, no luck. There was an advertisement on the bottom of the page for this print, from Amazon, so I signed up for it. At the end of the purchase session, they said delivery around mid January!!! Came back from grocery shopping yesterday to find a slip in the mailbox; a registered package I'd have to go to the post office to sign for.
I went: it was the print of the portrait. It was mailed from Bulgaria!! The customs form was in cyrillic! Now I know that electronic communication world wide are instantaneous and free. They could probably also sent the image to Bulgaria for printing. And the labor costs would probably be less.
However, I'm of a nasty, suspicions turn of mind. I sorta think that the musuem owns that portrait and if anyone in the US tried to copy it, they'd be in trouble with the law. Sending it out of the country to produce probably avoided this.
I welcome any informed comment on the legality of what went on.
