'Lost Rubens' faces Export Ban
January 18 2011
Picture: Sotheby's.
A portrait believed to be by Rubens has been stopped for export by the government's Reviewing Committee. The picture was offered at Sotheby's in December 2009 with an estimate of £4-6m, but failed to sell and is now priced at £1m.
The 'striking portrait of a very real, although unidentified, woman', according to the Committee's Chairman Lord Inglewood, must have presented the panel with a tricky dilemma. The so-called Waverley Criteria, by which a picture is judged to be of national importance, are;
- Is it so closely connected with our history and national life that its departure would be a misfortune?
- Is it of outstanding aesthetic importance?
- Is it of outstanding significance for the study of some particular branch of art, learning or history?
Now, the picture failed to sell at Sotheby's because some experts doubted it as a work by Rubens. The current price of £1 million must reflect continuing uncertainty over the attribution, for with a certain Rubens endorsement the picture would comfortably make the Sotheby's estimate.
So, if it is not a Rubens, could the Reviewing Committee really decide that it met any of the Waverley Criteria? This was a picture which had been almost entirely unknown, thus ruling out Waverley 1. As a non-Rubens of a not particularly compelling unidentified sitter it does not meet Waverley 2 either. And it certainly would not meet Waverley 3.
When it was offered at Sotheby's as a Rubens the picture suffered from an enthusiasm amongst some experts to be overly exclusionist, which often happens when a new picture emerges from leftfield with no pedigree.
Personally, I thought the portrait (which is unfinished) was by Rubens when I saw it in 2009, and that Sotheby's had done an excellent job to discover it and catalogue it. In any case, the new overseas owner has, at £1million, surely got a bargain, for it will doubtless be accepted once the initial doubts have died down. These things usually are.
Update 23.2.11: The painting was submitted for export by the current owners - it has not been sold. See here for more details.
