Export Ban on £50m Reynolds
March 11 2022
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The UK Government have placed a temporary export ban on Sir Joshua Reynolds's Portrait of Omai. Regular readers will know (1, 2) that the painting was sold from Castle Howard in 2001 at Sotheby's for £9.4m (hammer price). There had been attempts to export the picture in 2002 and again 2012. Both of these resulted in refusals.
Interested parties will now have to find no less than £50m (?!) to keep the painting in the country.
Committee Member Christopher Baker has been quoted as saying:
This magnificent British portrait has a global resonance. It illustrates the connectivity of the world in the late eighteenth century through exploration and the spread of colonial ambitions, as well as the fascination that high profile cultural encounters inspired. Mai (c.1753-1779) (or ‘Omai’ as he was called in Britain) arrived in London from his home in Polynesia in July 1774, aboard HMS Adventure, which formed part of Captain James Cook’s second voyage. He was regarded as a celebrity and became the focus of written accounts and images, among which this sensational painting is undoubtedly the most potent.
Reynolds’ picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1776, just after its subject returned to the Pacific. It is a highly romanticised image, illustrating European perceptions, and has a special status in the evolution of grand portraiture of the period. Securing it for a public collection would have profound benefits and allow the numerous and riveting historical and artistic narratives it embodies to be fully developed and shared.
