Oops! Gallery handlers break Renaissance painting

The National Gallery is urgently reviewing its handling procedures after a Renaissance painting broke in two while being moved from an exhibition.

Although the gallery never discusses the value of its paintings, works by the Sienese artist Domenico Beccafumi are highly prized: a Holy Family sold last year for more than £1.1m at Sotheby’s, over four times the estimate.

Perhaps mercifully for the gallery, it was its own painting, Marcia, not one of the valuable loans for the exhibition Renaissance Siena, which was broken. It apparently dropped out of a temporary frame while being taken off the wall by the gallery’s own picture handlers. The painting was made on a panel composed of three joined planks of timber, and broke along a joint. Paintings on panel are regarded as exceptionally fragile and vulnerable, and are frequently refused permission to travel by their owners.