Museum appeal for cut-price old master painting

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 15 Aug 2012

The Art Fund has backed a £3.9m appeal by the Fitzwilliam Museum to buy a masterpiece by Nicolas Poussin.

The University of Cambridge’s principal museum has until the end of November this year to raise the sum to purchase ‘Extreme Unction’, valued at more than £14m, from the 11th Duke of Rutland’s 2000 Settlement.

The trustees of the Settlement have offered the artwork to the Fitzwilliam Museum in order to offset the inheritance tax incurred by its sale of another masterpiece by Poussin, ‘Ordination’, for £15m last year. Using the government’s acceptance-in-lieu scheme, the organisation can offset its tax by offering a work of importance to the nation. Because the tax bill is less than the value of the artwork, the museum is fundraising to make up the difference of £3.876m.

Last year, Art Fund increased its acquisition fund by 50 per cent, to £7m a year, in order to assist museums and galleries run fundraising campaigns to retain or buy artworks for the nation. This year has already seen galleries dipping into their reserves in order to secure masterpieces.

Ten per cent of the money needed to buy ‘Extreme Unction’ has already been pledged and the Museum has applied to the Heritage Lottery Fund for support. Supporters of the Fitzwilliam Museum have also been contacted to help fund the acquisition. The Art Fund will work with the Museum to apply to other funds and trusts.

Art Fund director Dr Stephen Deuchar described the cut-price offer of the artwork as an unique opportunity. “Even for a museum collection as fine as the Fitzwilliam’s, this great Poussin would be a transformative acquisition,” he said.

The Fitzwilliam Museum’s director Dr Timothy Potts said the painting would be a “uniquely rich” teaching resource and a major coup. “This would be the most significant old master painting acquired by the Museum for nearly a century and would transform our representation of French art and of the classical tradition,” he said. “It is a ‘destination painting’.”

Directory: Heritage Lottery Fund

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.