Four down, three to go
June 28 2022
Picture: UK Government
The Duke of Rutland has sold another of his Poussin Sacraments, with Confirmation being subject to a temporary export bar from the UK government. The price a UK museum (or collector) must raise to keep the picture in the UK is £19m. Until 2010, the Duke had five of his seven sacraments on loan at the National Gallery in London, from the seven originally acquired by his family in 1784 (one - Penance - had been destroyed by fire in the 19th Century, and another - Baptism - sold to the US National Gallery in 1939). Since then, Ordination was bought by the Kimbell Art Gallery for £15.5m in 2010, while Extreme Unction was acquired by the Fitzwilliam Museum in 2012 after it was accepted by the UK government in lieu of tax for a sum of £14m. The Fitzwilliam had to raise 'only' £3.9m of that itself, and sadly we should probably expect that £19m is too much for a UK museum these days. At least the National Gallery of Scotland has a complete set of seven on long term loan from the Duke of Sutherland.
In other export news, the UK government has also placed a temporary bar on this £2.4m portrait of Algernon Marsden by Tissot.
