Arts patronage takes many forms. In the Renaissance, princes and popes commissioned such artists as Michelangelo and Raphael to build and decorate entire palaces. Today most collectors content themselves with supporting artists by collecting single works that enter their homes and collections. Patronage on a grander scale usually means writing a check or attending a fundraising event to help sponsor bigger projects like museum acquisitions or building projects. The Friends of Heritage Preservation (FoHP), a small group based in Los Angeles, has devised a new and effective approach to art patronage that not only helps fund projects in their own city but also takes them around the world.

Suzanne Deal Booth, a paintings conservator who organized international conservation education programs at the Getty, is the driving force behind FoHP. “The idea came out of frustration,” Booth explains as we drive toward Prague to visit the group’s latest project. While working for the American Institute of Conservation, she became exasperated by the amount of time she spent lobbying the government for “miserly amounts of money.” When she pointed this out to her husband, David, he reminded her that the government didn’t have the funds to give and suggested she divert her energies to attracting private individuals to conservation efforts. The Booths founded FoHP in 1998 along with four other philanthropic couples they invited.

FoHP is neither a nonprofit nor a foundation. “We are a private charitable group,” Booth explains. “Our aim is to work with like-minded individuals throughout the world, getting involved personally and seeing specific projects through from beginning to end.” Since its founding the group has expanded from its original 10 members to 21.

On this trip to Prague, I am joining the FoHP for the unveiling of one of its latest projects, which perfectly illustrates its philosophy. Booth and I are joined by 10 other members: Alison Crowel, Gay Browne, Karin Fielding, Laurie and Bill Benenson, Les and Sherri Biller, Peter Norton, Gwen Adams and Suzanne Kayne. The project the FoHP has funded is the restoration of a group of 13 portraits from the 17th century painted by Princess Ernestine Nassau-Siegen. She is thought to have been a pupil of Gerrit van Honthorst, whom she may have studied with while her family was in exile in the Hague. FoHP was approached by William Lobkowicz, whose family moved to the United States in 1948 after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia. William, who was born in the States, moved to Czechoslovakia in 1990, to reclaim and take care of his family’s vast heritage.