Museum acquisitions

JMW Turner’s oil painting ‘Walton Bridges’ which sold at Sotheby’s in July last year has been bought for the nation after funding was secured by Norfolk Museums Service.

Jane Austen's House Museum in Hampshire has launched an appeal to raise the remaining funds needed to buy a fragment of a letter written by the great novelist in 1814.

A set of pier tables and mirrors from the Thomas Chippendale workshop has been accepted in lieu for the nation and allocated to the Victoria & Albert Museum.

The J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has emerged as the buyer of two major works: Corpus Christi, a small, 15th century wooden sculpture by Veit Stoss, and Two Boys with a Bladder (1769-70), a painting by Joseph Wright of Derby.

A William Hogarth (1697-1764) painting that has been on loan to the New Walk Museum & Art Gallery in Leicester since 1943 has been purchased for the gallery.

To celebrate 40 years since the release of Madness’ ‘One Step Beyond’ - the 1979 debut album by the British ska-pop group - the V&A has unveiled a collection of memorabilia.

The Jerwood Collection of Modern British art has emerged as the buyer of ‘Encounter No 1’, an oil painting by Michael Ayrton (1921-75). After selling at the recent auction it will now go on public view.

A watercolour by Solomon Alexander Hart (1806-1881), the first Jewish member of the Royal Academy, drew dramatic competition at Tennants’ latest sale in North Yorkshire.

UK dealership Tomasso Brothers Fine Art has helped a Birmingham gallery to acquire a 19th century sculpture by the ‘Landseer of marble’.

The National Galleries of Scotland and the Victoria and Albert Museum have bought Italian artist Antonio Zucchi’s (1726-95) portrait of architect James Adam (1732-94).

Eight evocative antique shop signs, symbols of Paris’ ancient streetscapes, are off to the Musée Carnavalet, the city’s museum in the Marais district dedicated to the history of the French capital.

A pair of ‘champagne’ lamps designed by surrealist artist Salvador Dalí has been bought by the Victoria and Albert Museum and will be reunited with Dalí’s Mae West Lips sofa.