Once upon a time there was a rich man with bare walls. He went to a poor artist and bought a picture, took the picture home and smiled whenever he looked at it. The artist was a little bit richer, the rich man was very little poorer; they were both happy, and all was right with the world. After a while, the rich man died, and he left his beautiful picture to a big shiny museum where all the boys and girls and their mummies and daddies could go and see it whenever they wanted, and they all knew the name of the artist who became very famous. Everyone was happy and all was right with the world.

That is a fairy story – of the type that still, from time to time, comes true, especially if the story is part of the Arabian Nights. And like all good tradi-tional tales it has variants – the one about how the rich man simply gave the gallery the money to buy the picture, or the one about how it was the gallery that went to the artist’s studio and bought the picture, which was paid for very happily by all the mummies and daddies in the country so that all their boys and girls could always see the beautiful picture in the big shiny museum.