Mae West lips sofa among UK treasures saved for the nation

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/apr/25/mae-west-lips-sofa-uk-treasures-saved-nation-export-bar

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A Mae West lips sofa by Salvador Dalí and a rare marble bust of Queen Victoria are among national treasures saved for the nation last year, but artworks and photographs worth £58.5m were let go.

The 64th annual report of the committee that advises on export bars reveals that seven objects worth £3m were acquired by institutions in the UK in 2017-18.

That sum is dwarfed, however, by the value of six objects that were not acquired. They include an enormous painting of Venice’s Grand Canal by Francesco Guardi, valued at £26.2m; and a Turner painting considered one of the finest remaining in private hands, valued at £18.5m.

The clunkily titled reviewing committee on the export of works of art and objects of cultural interest advises the government on what “national treasure” artworks and objects are at risk of leaving the UK. Ministers then place export bars on the items to allow time for UK institutions and individuals to match prices paid by foreign buyers.

Sir Hayden Phillips, chair of the committee, said it had been “another absorbing and interesting year” but acknowledged there had been mixed results. “While we have not been able to retain all of the objects which we recommended for temporary export referral, those that have been purchased by UK institutions represent a significant gain for public access to our cultural life,” he said.

The seven saved objects are:

• Two surrealist works Salvador Dalí made for and with his patron Edward James. A Mae West lips sofa acquired by the V&A Museum for £480,000 and a Lobster telephone purchased by the National Galleries of Scotland for £853,000.

• A late-18th-century drawing, the Schmadribach Waterfall near Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland by Joseph Anton Koch, once owned by the art critic Brian Sewell, was bought by the British Museum for £69,000;

• A portrait bust of Queen Victoria by Sir Alfred Gilbert, acquired by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge for £1.2m;

• A George I Palladian baby house acquired by the V&A Museum of Childhood for £65,000;

• An annotated second edition of the Workes of Benjamin Jonson (1640), purchased by the University of Edinburgh for £48,000;

• A Roman figurine of a man wearing a hooded cloak, purchased by the Chelmsford Museum for £550.

The last case, the committee said, highlights that outstanding significance does not need to correlate to monetary value.

Two artworks not saved are now in the collection of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles: John Martin’s The Destruction of Pharaoh’s Host, and Peter Paul Rubens’ Head of an African Man in a Turban (1609). An album of photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron also failed to find a UK buyer.