After reading coverage in the Antiques Trade Gazette and the national press, the buyer contacted the gallery, who own one of three versions of Hunt’s famous painting, and offered to sell them the lantern for the auction price.
The gallery raised the sum with the help of £23,000 from the National Art Collections Fund and other funding from the Friends of Manchester City Art Galleries and the Resource/V&A Purchase Grant Fund. The lantern will now hang next to Manchester’s version of the painting along with a letter from the artist.
Manchester gallery secures Light of the World after all
Manchester City Art Gallery, the underbidder at auction for the lantern which was the original model for Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World, have secured the piece after all. The gallery underbid the lantern, pictured right, when it was sold to a private collector for £46,000 (plus 15% buyer’s premium) on November 1 at Bonhams Knightsbridge.
