Days after the British government placed an export ban on two important works by the English painter, George Stubbs (1724-1806), officials have announced that they will take similar measures to keep a landscape painting of a London park by American Hudson River School artist, Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900), in the U.K.
The export ban placed on Cropsey’s Richmond Hill in the Summer of 1862 gives the British government time to raise money to keep the painting in the country rather than having it sold to a foreign buyer. The government will need to come up with about $7.83 million in order to keep the painting, which has been in British collections for 150 years, in the U.K. Richmond Hill is important to British culture because it draws connections between American and British landscape paintings of the 19th century. It is one of the only British landscapes by an American artist to remain in the U.K.
The export ban will keep the Cropsey painting in the U.K. until April 7, 2013 and may be extended to August 7, 2013 if a potential British buyer has been found. The British government placed a previous export ban on Richmond Hill in 2000.
