National Gallery faces worst acquisition crisis in over a century

LONDON. The National Gallery is facing its most serious acquisition crisis for over 100 years, with the threat of losing pictures on loan worth around £200m. Not since cuts in government funding in the 1890s has the ­situation been more difficult.
We can reveal that the latest work on loan coming up for sale is Rubens’s Apotheosis of King James I, a sketch for the ceiling of the Banqueting House in Whitehall. Other works to be sold are Poussin’s Sacraments and Titian’s Portrait of a Young Man.


The timing of these sales is particularly difficult because the National Gallery will shortly be losing its director. Charles Saumarez Smith leaves on 26 July, to take up the post of secretary and chief executive of the Royal Academy in September. Frustrations over the level of government funds for the National Gallery was one of the reasons behind his resignation.
The historically important Rubens sketch was done during the artist’s stay in London in 1629-30, for Inigo Jones’ recently erected Banqueting Hall. The picture was acquired by the 2nd Viscount Hampden in the late 18th century, and has remained in his family for over 200 years. Since 1981 the Rubens has hung at the National Gallery, as an 'anonymous” loan. It is now owned by Viscount Hampden’s family trust.


Neither the owner nor the gallery was willing to discuss the price, but the historical importance of the grisaille oil sketch means that it could be worth £10m-£15m on the open market. Tax breaks for a public collection would mean that the cost to the National Gallery might be around half this sum. However, the Rubens market is difficult to predict, following the sale of the large oil masterpiece, The Massacre of the Innocents, which was bought by Lord Thomson for £49.5m five years ago. If the National Gallery is unable to raise the funds for the Whitehall sketch, then one option would be for Tate to go for it, since Rubens made the sketch in Britain, and it therefore falls within Tate’s remit.
Viscount Hampden told us that if a UK public collection is unable to purchase the Rubens, then his family trust would need to have a 'rethink”.
Sacraments
A much more expensive work which is up for sale is Poussin’s Sacraments of 1637-40. The five paintings (Confirmation, Eucharist, Extreme Unction, Marriage and Ordination) belong to the Duke of Rutland, and have been in his family since 1785. Two of the 'seven” sacraments have gone: Penance was destroyed by fire in 1816 and Baptism was sold in 1939 to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. There is also a completely different later set of Seven Sacraments which is owned by the Duke of Sutherland and on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Scotland.
The Duke of Rutland’s five Sacraments, owned by a family trust, have been lent to the London gallery since 2002. In February, Apollo magazine reported 'rumours” that the Duke was wanting to sell, and we can now confirm this. The London agent acting for him told The Art Newspaper: 'On behalf of the owner, I have been in talks with the National Gallery about the long-term future of the Poussins.”
Again, no one is discussing values, but the set of five Poussins are believed to be worth over £100m on the open market. The tax savings would mean the price to a public collection might be half that sum.
If the London gallery is unable to raise the money, the obvious next move would be to approach the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, which already owns one of the set. The Louvre in Paris would also love to be able to acquire the Poussins.
Dilemma
Finally, there is also Titian’s Portrait of a Young Man of around 1515-20, which had been on loan to the National Gallery from Lord Halifax since 1992. Two years ago the picture was withdrawn, and put on the ­market. Last year the National Gallery offered the after-tax equivalent of £55m (The Art Newspaper, September 2005, p11). This was rejected by Lord Halifax, and the painting has remained on sale with London dealer Simon Dickinson.
The fact that the Titian portrait has failed to sell suggests that it has not proved easy to market at a higher price. It is therefore possible that discussions may resume with the National Gallery.
The acquisition crisis over the really great masterpieces means that other important (but slightly lesser) pictures are being lost. For instance, an export licence was recently deferred on Alonso Sanchez Coello’s Portrait of Don Diego, which has just been bought for the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna (The Art Newspaper, June 2007, pp1, 4). The cost is £2m, and a UK collection has until 20 July to indicate a serious interest in raising the money. Although the National Gallery badly wants this Spanish portrait, and in normal circumstances would have tried to raise the money, it cannot consider it in the current situation.
The gallery now has to decide its priorities, since in practice it would be very difficult to raise money for more than one of the very major works—the Rubens sketch, the Poussin set or the Titian portrait.
Poussins
Our information suggests that Dr Saumarez Smith will make the ambitious move to go for the Poussin Sacraments, preventing their dispersal. In artistic terms, it is one of the finest works by arguably the greatest French artist of the 17th century, and it has been in Britain for more than 200 years.
The five Poussins have an open market value of over £100m ($200m). The set is therefore likely to end up being the most valuable work ever sold (the record for a single work is probably the $140m paid for Hollywood tycoon David Geffen’s Pollock’s No. 5, 1948 in a private sale last autumn).
It will be an enormous challenge for the National Gallery to raise the money for the Poussins. The gallery does have the £50m Getty endowment, but it only spends the income, not the capital, and this amounts to roughly £3m a year. The Art Fund (formerly NACF) would almost certainly help, although so far its largest grant paid out is £550,000, although £2.25m has just been pledged to Dumfries House in Scotland.
The Poussins should be ­eligible for assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, but its resources are limited. Although its annual grant from government rose to £10m last April, it has to fund a range of objects.
Finally, there is the Heritage Lottery Fund. HLF did support the National Gallery’s purchase of the £22m Raphael Madonna of the Pinks three years ago, but at the time it stressed that this was an exceptional grant. However, the only chance of getting sufficient external support to save the Poussins would probably be a substantial grant from HLF.
With Dr Saumarez Smith’s resignation, the challenge of leading the fundraising will this month pass to Martin Wyld, the gallery’s head of conservation, who is to become acting director. The National Gallery directorship was advertised on 19 June, but with interviews scheduled for the autumn, the new appointee is unlikely to start until early next year. Fundraising skills will be a key qualification.