• Mequitta Ahuja's "Royal Ease" in the "Portraiture Now" show coming in October.

As a sign that the Arkansas Arts Center feels its ship has been righted and is now on course, the Board of Directors voted today to include 3 percent raises to staff, both management and non-management, in its 2014 budget.

Arts Center also made its 2013 budget with $45 left over. Pretty tight management there; the Arts Center's come a long way from the curse put on it by the "World of the Pharaohs" exhibition (and some funny business by a former staffer that was settled with the Foundation), which left it with a budget deficit of $1.6 million in 2009. The 2014 budget of $6,042,000 is just slightly higher than last year's and is "conservative," board member and finance chair Mary Ellen Vangilder said. The year will be the first full year with its curatorial staff, who came on board last December thanks to a grant by the Windgate Foundation. The Arts Center will also receive a welcome infusion of money from the city of $400,000, part of its promise to voters in the 2011 penny sales tax election. The city had reduced its contribution to the Arts Center, once $800,000, to $200,000 in recent years because of its own budget problems.

The "Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: Treasures of Kenwood House, London" exhibit that opened Thursday to members and Friday to the public, had 2,125 visitors between Thursday night and Sunday. Opening night brought in a crowd of 1,250, 430 of them piling into the children's theater and the lecture hall for talks by Julius Bryant of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The show is credited with producing 87 new memberships at the Arts Center. (Members may see the show for free, among other perks.)

Attendance was up 5,567 over 2012, Herman also reported.

Staff discussed maintenance needs for the Arts Center, which are not budgeted for 2014. The Children's Theatre needs a new projector, audio and rugs; the Wolfe and Rockefeller gallery lights are obsolete — there were just enough for the Kenwood House show, Herman said. Rugs in the gift shop and restaurant need replacing. And so forth.

Herman also talked about the 2014 exhibition lineup, including:

"Face to Face," artists self portraits from the collection of Jackye and Curtis Finch, which will be paired with "Portraiture Now: Drawing on the Edge" from the National Gallery. They run Oct. 25 through Feb. 9, 2014, though the new website — that's another story altogether, thumbs down on the redo — says Feb. 9, 201.

"Mark Rothko in the 1940s: The Decisive Decade," which will illustrate the development of the artist and include the 1949 "Untitled," a masterpiece in yellow, purple, black and green that Herman said is one of the most valuable paintings in the National Gallery collection. Also Oct. 25-Feb. 9, 2014.

"The Crossroads of Memory: Carroll Cloar and the American South," now showing at the Brooks Museum in Memphis (800 on its opening night last week, a record-breaker for the Brooks) and which includes several pieces from the collection of former Arts Center board member Bobby Tucker. It will run Feb. 28, 2014, to June 1, 2014.

Non-management had a 2 percent cost of living raise in 2011; management had not had a raise since 2008. In fact, management took a 10 percent pay cut in 2012. That pay was restored last month to Arts Center Director Todd Herman and Director of Operations Laine Harber. (With their new pay raise, Herman will make about $165,000 and Harber $103,000.)

• Reynolds' "Mrs. Musters as Hebe"

Thanks to a gracious Todd Herman, director of the Arkansas Arts Center, I got a tour today of the Arts Center’s bang-up “Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: Treasures of Kenwood House, London” exhibition. It opens tonight to members and tomorrow to the public. Yes, it's ticketed, but it may be the best $12 you'll ever spend.

There is nothing like standing in front of a painting by Rembrandt. The 1665 self-portrait, made by the artist in his last years, comes from the collection of Lord Iveagh, who was simply Edward Cecil Guinness before he made a mint in the beer business and started climbing London’s social ladder in the late 19th century. The artist's soft strokes and complex hues reveal the face of a genius. Rembrandt sits, draped in a dark jacket with red vest and with palette in hand, his face framed in light. The plain mustardy background has two arcs drawn on it; Herman said the latest interpretation of this strangely modern background is that the arcs are Rembrandt's reference to 14th century Italian master Giotto, who was said to have won the pope’s commission by simply painting a perfect circle, suggesting that the artist believed himself to be the Giotto of his time. Yet this is a portrait of Rembrandt as a humble man, a jewel that is amazingly in Little Rock.

In fact, there is nothing quite like the exhibition in its entirety, especially to those of us whose travel abroad is limited. These 48 paintings have come to the United States while Kenwood House, which Guinness bequeathed to Great Britain, is restored. The 17th, 18th and 19th century paintings remind us that there was once a time when great art made grand scale was in demand. Like “slo-food,” this is slo-art, sumptuous work depicting the heroic and the wonderful. Today, people are too busy with their mobile phones and ipads and television to need great art, or music. Not so when Rembrandt, Van Dyck and Gainsborough worked, though only the wealthy few could afford such beautiful distractions.

Besides the Rembrandt, there are stunning full-length portraits — enormous paintings, seven feet tall and taller — of women in elegant finery or mythic costume by Gainsborough, Van Dyck, Sir Joshua Reynolds and George Romney; a rich Turner seascape; exquisite Dutch paintings of ships (including the 1630 painting of the London Bridge by Claude de Jongg); a pair of sexy Bouchers celebrating romantic love (see the two cherries dangle from the young lover's finger); portraits of beautiful children that Herman said denote what he called the "renaissance of the child," when they came to be viewed not as miniature adults but innocents. Reynolds' "Mrs. Musters as Hebe" is a gorgeous painting of Sophia Musters as the cup-bearer to the gods, a portrait painted for Mr. Musters after the painting he commissioned ended up with Mrs. Muster's lover, the Prince of Wales.

Guinness collected these paintings for his stunning home in Hempstead Health in only four years and from the same dealer, Herman said. Lucky dealer. The show will run through Sept. 8; reserve tickets at the Arts Center's website.

The finance committee of the Arkansas Arts Center board of directors today approved a 2014 budget proposal of $6,041,058 million for 2014, an increase of $137,705 over 2013. The budget will be presented to the full board on Monday.