Displaying items by tag: culture minister

A UK government export bar has been placed on a recently rediscovered and gloriously light-filled harbor scene by the 17th-century French painter Claude Lorrain. The painting, considered one of the finest examples of Claude’s seaport scenes, will leave the UK unless £5,066,500 can be raised following its purchase by an overseas buyer.

The export bar was ordered by the culture minister, Ed Vaizey, on the recommendation of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA), which decides on whether art should be considered of national importance and worth trying to keep in the UK.

An anonymous caller has cracked open an organized crime syndicate that stole up to 302 works of art from Turkey's State Art and Sculpture Museum, located in the capital, Ankara. According to a report in the "Hurriyet" Turkish newspaper, three individuals from the group have been arrested thus far. Fifteen remain on the run.

The arrests came courtesy of an anonymous phone call to the Turkish culture minister Ertuğrul Günay. The witness, said to be an antiques dealer himself and referred to by the pseudonym "Daylight," has revealed extensive details about the operation.

France’s outgoing culture minister Aurélie Filipetti has joined Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg in blasting President François Hollande’s economic policy and declaring that she will not be part of the reshuffled government to be announced Tuesday. Ex-education minister Benoît Hamon is also among the rebels.

Picasso Museum chair Anne Baldassari has been removed from her post by Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti in response to complaints about the poor condition of the facility, which is slated to reopen in September, the French Culture Ministry said Tuesday.

Filippetti had asked the Inspector General's Office for Cultural Affairs, or ICAG, to prepare a report on the museum, which has been plagued by delays in its remodeling and complaints from the Picasso heirs that France does not value the painter.

Back in May 2013, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles announced that it had bought Rembrandt Laughing, a 17^th century self-portrait by the Dutch master, from the London-based art dealer’s Hazlitt Gooden & Fox. On Tuesday, July 16, 2013, it was revealed that Britain’s culture minister, Ed Vaizey, had delayed approval of the Getty’s application for an export license until October 15, 2013, a tactic usually used to give collectors and museums enough time to collect the funds necessary to keep an artwork in the country.

In 2007, Rembrandt Laughing was put up for sale at a small auction house in England and said to be by a “follower of Rembrandt” even though a number of dealers thought it to be an authentic work by the artist. Eventually, scientific tests and studies by a leading Rembrandt scholar confirmed the attribution, causing the work’s value to skyrocket. In order to keep the painting in England past October 15, a British institution interested in buying the work will need to raise around $25.1 million, the price the Getty has agreed to pay for it.

The Getty has run into trouble exporting works out of Britain in the past. In 1994, the institution was told that they could not have Antonio Canova’s sculpture Three Graces, after raising $12 million and waiting five years.  

The British government has placed a temporary export bar on two important oil paintings by George Stubbs (1724-1806), an English painter best know for his depictions of horses. The works, which went on display at London’s Royal Academy in 1773, gave the British public their first glimpse of a kangaroo and a dingo.

Since Stubbs was unable to paint the animals, which are native to Australia, from life, he created Kongouro from New Holland (The Kangaroo) (1772) and Portrait of a Large Dog (The Dingo) (1772) from spoken accounts. He also made sketches of the kangaroo after inflating the animal’s preserved skin. Stubbs won praise for bringing the likenesses of the foreign animals to the British public for the first time. It is believed that Sir Joseph Banks commissioned the paintings after assisting in Captain James Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific.

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey announced the temporary export bar on Wednesday, February 6, 2013 following a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee On The Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest. The ban will remain in place until August 5, 2013 and may be extended until November 5, 2013. Potential buyers will need $8.6 million to keep the paintings in Britain.