£40m worth of art acquisitions for the UK
December 19 2017
Picture: ACE/Ashmolean
In the UK, the government's Arts Council has published details of all the new artworks acquired by museums through the various tax concessions available to instutions. The most important of these is Acceptance in Lieu, whereby owners of important items can offer them to a museum, and the government effectively foots the bill for the museum for agreeing to forgo the tax. Then ther is the Cultural Giving Scheme, which allows donors to write off some tax if they gift a work to a museum. In the latter category, as the latest Arts Council report reveals, is an extraordinary renaissance terracotta foot, given to the Ashmolean Museum by Danny Katz, the major London art dealer. Bravo to Danny, and to the Treasury for continuing this enlightened policy.
