Edouard Manet portrait saved for the nation
Baku, August 10 (AZERTAC). An Edouard Manet painting, Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus, has been saved for the nation following a campaign to stop it being taken overseas.
The portrait was acquired by the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford thanks to a successful public appeal to raise the £7.83 million asking price.
The work was bought in a studio sale by John Singer Sargent, the British artist, and passed down through generations of his family. It has been exhibited in public only once before, at the National Gallery in 1983.
The anonymous foreign buyer paid £28.35 million for the painting but, under the terms of a private treaty sale, it was made available to a British public institution at only 27 per cent of its market value.
A public appeal by the Ashmolean led to 1,069 members of the public sending in donations, ranging from £1.50 to £10,000. Other grants and donations made up the total, including £5.9 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £850,000 from the Art Fund.
The final donation of £30 was made by 11-year-old Maya Talbot from Oxford, the daughter of an art teacher. Mara attended the official announcment at the Ashmolean.
Dr Christopher Brown, director of the Ashmolean, said: “The public`s response to the campaign for the Manet has been overwhelming.
The portrait is one of only a handful of Manets in British museums,
Manet painted the oil on canvas portrait in 1868. The subject is concert violinist Fanny Claus, a close friend of Manet`s wife, Suzanne Leenhoff. She was 22 when she sat for Manet and died of tuberculosis eight years later.
The portrait is unfinished and is a first version of Manet`s later and more famous work, Le Balcon (1868-69).
Ed Vaizey, Culture Secretary, said: “I am delighted that the temporary export bar I placed on the painting has resulted in the Ashmolean being able to acquire this fantastic work by one of the greatest painters of the 19th century.
Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus will be lent to public museums and galleries in a nationwide tour next year.
Other news in this section
