700 year old painting's export blocked
January 20 2013
Picture: DCMS
A panel by Pietro Lorenzetti has had an export licence deferred by the government. It is apparently the only picture in the UK to have an unquestioned attribution to Lorenzetti, although the press release says the picture has 'only recently come to light'.
Institutions now have until April to attempt to raise the £5.2m required to keep the picture in the UK. More details here.
Update - a reader writes:
If you check Christies website entry for the actual auction last July, you will see that it was estimated at £1-1.5M. As it was from an established British collection, I assume it might have been possible for a UK collection to acquire it by private treaty at something like 2/3 of the upper estimate; ie around £1M. Now we’re looking at five times that.
