Museums and Institutions

A French Foundation devoted to Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) has finally been launched, ten years after his widow Annette called for its creation in her will. The French government gave the Fondation Alberto & Annette Giacometti the green light on December 9.

A National Art Collections Fund grant of £37,500 has helped Ely’s Stained Glass Museum acquire an important early 13th century French stained glass panel of the bust of a king.

Gothic Art for England 1400-1547, edited by Richard Marks and Paul Williamson, published by V&A Publications. ISBN 1851774017. £45 hb

It is now 15 years since the Royal Academy mounted their landmark exhibition, The Age of Chivalry, covering the arts in Plantagenet England from 1200-1400. This week the Victoria and Albert Museum launches its chronological successor – Gothic: Art For England, covering the later medieval period from 1400-1547.

Pre-Raphaelite Art in the Victoria & Albert Museum, by Suzane Fagence Cooper, published by V&A Publications. ISBN 1851773932 £30hb (pub. Oct 9).

CULTURE secretary Tessa Jowell has extended her deadline for deciding on what sum the National Gallery should pay for The Madonna of the Pinks.

Illuminated Manuscripts and their Makers, by Rowan Watson, published by V&A Publications. ISBN 1851773851 £30hb

Christie’s have helped negotiate the sale to the Victoria and Albert Museum of the Castlereagh gold inkstand created by Paul Storr and Philip Rundell for the British diplomat Viscount Castlereagh (1769-1822) in 1818.

Art Deco 1910-1939, edited by Tim Benton, Charlotte Benton and Ghislaine Wood, published by V&A Publications. ISBN 1851773876 £40 hardback ISBN 1851773886 £29.95 soft back.

COLLECT is the simple name of a new annual event to be launched at the V&A in London in February next year. The Crafts Council say it will be the premier showcase for unique and limited edition contemporary objects.

The National Art Collections Fund (Art Fund), has offered a £400,000 grant to the National Gallery in their bid to secure Raphael’s The Madonna of the Pinks for the collection. The painting, sold by the Duke of Northumberland to the Getty Museum in California, is subject to a temporary export bar of one month, with a potential further six months extension, to give the National Gallery the chance to raise the £29.5m needed to keep it in the country.

The Print in Italy: 1550-1620 by Michael Bury, published by the British Museum Press in September 2001. ISBN 0714126292 £35pb

THE Tate Gallery has launched a campaign to raise £12.5m to acquire Sir Joshua Reynolds’ celebrated portrait of Omai, the South Sea Islander who took London Society by storm in the 18th century.

William Beckford 1760-1844: An Eye for the Magnificent, edited by Derek E Ostergard, published by Yale University Press ISBN 30009068. £50 hb

Thomas Gainsborough: A Country Life, by Hugh Belsey, published by Prestel. ISBN 379132784 £14.95hb

Pick of the Bligh relics sold at Christies King Street last month was the cup that he used to hold his meagre rations of bread and water, a coconut shell that bears his incised initials, the date April 1789 and, inscribed in ink around the rim, the words “The Cup I eat my miserable allowance of”.

York Art Gallery have just scrapped admission charges. The gallery houses 600 years of internationally important British and European works of art including painting by Bellotto, Hockney, Hepworth and York-born William Etty.

Interpreting Matisse/Picasso by Elizabeth Cowling, published by Tate Publishing. ISBN 1854373935 £9.99 pbk

Matisse Picasso published by Tate Publishing with essays by six international curators including the two British curators John Golding and Elizabeth Cowling. ISBN 1854373927 £40 hb, ISBN 1854373765 £29.99 sb

THE acquisition of a unique collection of Afghan textiles has highlighted the cash crisis at the British Museum. Despite spending £34,000 on the collection, including a £26,000 grant from the National Arts Collection Fund, the BM’s ethnographic textiles collection has nowhere to display it.