National Gallery facing classic canvas art crisis
Published on: 04-Jul-2007
London's National Gallery looks set to face a major canvas art crisis if rumoured plans that would see some of its most treasured works put up for sale go ahead.Three of Britain's oldest families have announced plans to sell off works that have been on long-term loan to the Gallery in an effort to ease tax bills and keep up with estate costs, reports the Art Newspaper.
The works reportedly set to go under the hammer are Nicolas Poussin's Sacraments, owned by the Duke of Rutland, Titian's acclaimed Portrait of a Young Man, owned by Lord Halifax, and a sketch by Rubens for his Apotheosis of King James in Whitehall, part of the extensive collection of Lord Hampden.
The trio of pieces would be expected to collect around £200 million at auction, and, even if the National Gallery were to raise sufficient funds to fight off expected competition from more lavishly-funded US galleries, such a large outlay would almost certainly mean that other important pictures would then be lost from the London collection.
The canvas art crisis looks to have come at a particularly problematic time for the Gallery, as director Charles Saumarez Smith prepares to leave for a new position with the Royal Academy and with no permanent replacement likely to be installed until early next year.
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