Displaying items by tag: penrhyn castle

A plan to permanently secure a £35m painting by Rembrandt for the UK has been thwarted. The Portrait of Catrina Hooghsaet (1657), which has hung in Penrhyn Castle in north Wales for 150 years, will remain in the UK under the ownership of an overseas buyer, who this week withdrew their export licence application.

The Art Fund had quietly started a campaign to try to buy the Rembrandt and present it to a major public collection, probably the National Museum Wales in Cardiff.

The UK culture minister has delayed issuing an export license on Rembrandt’s Portrait of Catrina Hooghsaet (1657), which has been in the UK for over 250 years but was recently sold to a foreign buyer for £35m. The painting is particularly popular with the public because Hooghsaet, a wealthy Amsterdam woman, is shown with her pet parrot—who was named in her will—not her estranged husband.

Earlier this year, the Rembrandt was sold by the Douglas-Pennant family, whose home is Penrhyn Castle, a National Trust mansion in north Wales. The portrait had hung there since 1860.