The Van Dyck, a lifesize Portrait of Cesare Alessandro Scaglia, the master spy c.1634, valued at £13.5m, has been accepted from the estate of the second Viscount Camrose (of Hackwood Park) in lieu of £9.4m inheritance tax. It will probably go to the National Gallery. The £9.3m price for Rembrandt’s Portrait of an Elderly Man, had been agreed between the estate of Lord Cowdray and a buyer from the Netherlands. Arts Minister Alan Howarth has blocked the deal until June 22 as well as the export of Ben Nicholson’s £130,000 painting Collage until May 19.
Picture politics
UK: THE Government has saved one of Van Dyck’s finest paintings for the nation and is blocking the export of two further paintings, a Rembrandt and a Ben Nicholson.
