Export ban saves objects and art

Nine groups of objects worth more than £1.5m in total were barred from export and entered UK museum collections last year, while seven objects could not be saved and were subsequently exported.

The 55th annual Export of Objects of Cultural Interest report, published in December, revealed that export licences were deferred for 16 cases between May 2008 and April 2009 by the then secretary of state for culture, media and sport, Andy Burnham.

Nine of these subsequently resulted in acquisitions by UK institutions (see box below), including a pair of Queen Anne giltwood stools purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum for £337,250, with additional funding from the Art Fund (£125,000) and the London Historic House Museums Trust (£26,595).

Matching funds could not be raised, however, in seven cases. Items consequently exported included a pair of bronze statues by Cipriani (Medici Venus and Dancing Faun) and a painting by JMW Turner (Pope’s Villa at Twickenham). The total value of the seven cases is £14.2m, according to the report.

Committee members include professor David Ekserdjian of Leicester University, London art dealer Johnny Van Haeften and Tim Knox, director of Sir John Soane’s Museum in London.

Burnham accepted the recommendations of the reviewing committee, which is overseen by the MLA’s acquisitions, exports and loans unit in most cases.

But he rejected the committee’s advice regarding the papers of James Bruce, the eighth Earl of Elgin, and decided that an export licence should be granted for the papers to travel to Canada, subject to certain conditions.

The number of licences deferred and objects acquired was nearly exactly the same as the preceding year. The MLA’s acquisitions, exports and loans unit is set to move to the MLA’s headquarters in Birmingham later this year.

- A bust of Charles Townley by Joseph Nollekens, purchased by Towneley Hall Art Gallery and Museum for £308,750
- A William Hamilton Shortt clock, purchased by National Museums Liverpool for £72,217
- A manuscript of Cavalli’s opera Erismena, bought by the Bodleian Library for £85,000
- A pair of Queen Anne giltwood stools, purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum for £337,250
- Nine dresses designed by Madeleine Vionnet, purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Fashion Museum in Bath and the Bowes Museum for a total of £351,398.81 (classed as two cases)
- A Celtic bronze mirror and fibulae, bought by Canterbury City Council for the Museum of Canterbury for £35,000
- A Romano-British statuette of a horse/rider, bought by the British Museum for £22,066.81
- A journal and charts by Sir John Narborough, bought by the British Library for £310,000