Swept away: the art and artefacts destroyed by the world’s greatest museums

A sitar that once belonged to George Harrison was broken at the V&A – and this was far from the first time a gallery has had to make an awkward apology

Anyone who has ever been told off by a snippy museum guard for getting too close to an artwork may be interested to learn that galleries and their staff are not always the unassailable guardians of culture they appear to be. It has emerged that V&A staff dropped the precious sitar that George Harrison played on Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and broke it in two. “It hit the ground and the gourd bounced away,” revealed a whistleblower. The museum was forced to make an “awkward telephone call” to Harrison’s widow, Olivia, to explain. Naturally, museums don’t boast about the accidents and losses for which they are responsible, but enough incidences have come to light to give a tragicomic picture of behind the scenes chaos. Here are just some of them ...

Continue reading...