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Rubey enables museums to exhibit privately financed masterpieces, from single artworks to entire collections, through long-term loans free of charge. Together, we preserve cultural heritage, unlock its value, and share it with the public.
Many museums face the same challenge. Acquisition budgets are shrinking while the art market becomes increasingly competitive. Exceptional works appear on the market but remain out of reach, leaving curators unable to fill historical gaps or strengthen key parts of their collections.
Rubey offers a solution. We help museums secure artworks or collections that would otherwise disappear into private hands, ensuring they remain accessible to the public.
When your curators identify a work they wish to acquire, or when a collector offers a piece beyond your reach, Rubey can step in as your financial partner. We acquire the work, manage the logistics and place it on long-term loan with your museum, free of charge.
Traditional funding for acquisitions is under pressure, yet the need to preserve and exhibit cultural heritage has never been greater. Rubey introduces a new, sustainable model that connects retail and qualified investors with public institutions.
Through this structure, investors co-own museum-worthy artworks or collections. Rubey manages the financial, legal and operational framework, ensuring that the artworks are safely acquired, insured and placed on long-term loan with partner museums.
For museums, this means renewed access to significant works without the financial burden of ownership. Each partnership combines curatorial expertise, public access and responsible private support, creating a lasting balance between capital and culture.
Rubey carries the full financial and operational responsibility for each acquisition. The artworks or collections are owned by investors through a regulated structure, while Rubey oversees their management, insurance and conservation.
Museums are not required to invest financially or take on additional obligations. Each project is designed around long-term security and museum-grade standards, fully aligned with ICOM principles for loans and conservation.
This allows museums to focus entirely on their curatorial mission, knowing that every Rubey partnership is built on transparency, compliance and care.
At Rubey, artistic and curatorial decisions always remain with the museum. Each acquisition begins with the museum’s curatorial team, who define the artistic framework, assess the museum value and ensure that every work fits within the institutional collection policy.
Rubey complements this expertise with due diligence on provenance, authenticity, market value and compliance. All research is conducted in collaboration with independent experts, ensuring that every acquisition meets the highest ethical and professional standards.
Final approval is always shared: the museum’s curatorial team decides on artistic and institutional relevance, while Rubey validates the financial and legal parameters. Only when both sides agree, a project moves forward.
Working with Rubey allows museums to access and exhibit high-value artworks or collections that would otherwise remain out of reach. Each partnership combines curatorial freedom with financial and operational support, giving institutions room to grow without additional burden.
Key benefits:
• Access to exceptional works that strengthen the collection
• Long-term loans free of charge, fully insured and professionally managed
• Increased visitor numbers and media visibility through acquisitions
• Opportunity to use Rubey-owned works as exchange currency
• Strengthened position within the international museum network
• Collaborative opportunities for research, education and programming
• Stronger relationships with private supporters and funding communities
• Transparent reporting on provenance, conservation and impact
Rubey’s model has already proven its strength in practice. Together with the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), Rubey realized the world’s first public fractional ownership of a museum-worthy artwork, Carnaval de Binche by James Ensor. The painting was acquired through a regulated structure with both retail and qualified investors and is now on long-term loan to the KMSKA, free of charge and fully insured.
The work recently travelled to Poland for a temporary exhibition, showing how Rubey-owned artworks can also serve as exchange currency between museums. Building on this success, KMSKA and Rubey launched a new initiative called HERstory, aimed at strengthening the museum’s collection with artworks by female artists and addressing a striking imbalance where less than one percent of the collection is currently made by women.
Together, Rubey and KMSKA demonstrate how curatorial ambition, social relevance and innovative funding can reshape cultural heritage for the future.
Rubey bridges two worlds that have long depended on each other yet rarely worked together: culture and capital. By connecting investors with museums, Rubey helps preserve heritage that would otherwise disappear into private collections and keeps it accessible to the public.
Every project creates shared value. Museums gain access to significant works, investors contribute to the preservation of cultural heritage, and society benefits from renewed visibility of artworks that define our collective identity.
This model enables long-term conservation, responsible ownership and inclusive storytelling. It offers a sustainable way to finance culture, proving that economic innovation can serve public good when built on transparency, ethics and shared purpose.
Rubey is open to collaborations with visionary museums and cultural institutions that share our belief in accessible and sustainable heritage. Whether you want to explore a specific acquisition, strengthen a curatorial theme or discuss a broader partnership, we are ready to help.
Together we can bring exceptional artworks back into public view and create lasting cultural value for future generations.
