Museum acquisitions

The Château of Versailles exercised its right of pre-emption to acquire an 18th century painting of its orangerie that was offered at auction.

The Tate has acquired its earliest picture by a female artist.

Islington Museum has paid £8000 for a screen collage by Joe Orton's lover and killer Kenneth Halliwell at a JP Humbert auction this week.

The director of the Victoria & Albert Museum is to step down this autumn after five years in the role.

With his trademark fez and deceptively shambolic stage persona, Tommy Cooper was one of Britain’s best known TV personalities. Now the Victoria & Albert Museum is acknowledging his fame and popularity with the announcement that they have acquired the comedian’s memorabilia collection.

The National Trust has acquired an important Jacobean portrait miniature for £2.1m from a private seller in a sale brokered by Omnia Art.

The Tate has acquired a major portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) from Castle Howard in North Yorkshire after it was accepted in lieu of inheritance tax.

An impressive and richly decorated pair of early 17th century gilt bronze and pietre dura inlaid Italian cabinets, which stood in Castle Howard, Yorkshire for two and a half centuries, have been saved for the Nation by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

The V&A have acquired an early form by the artist-potter Hans Coper (1920-81). Made in 1955 in the studio Coper shared with Lucie Rie in Paddington, London, the large bowl was the subject of a temporary export ban in 2015 in the hope a UK buyer could be found.

Without computers, virtual reality was a very different concept 200 years ago. Clever use of optics and illusion was the key, as a paper peepshow collection given to London’s Victoria and Albert Museums demonstrates beautifully.

The Bowes Museum has secured funding at a sum of nearly £2.3m to keep an exit-barred painting attributed to the workshop of Dieric Bouts the Elder in the UK.

Sim Fine Art have sold their first ever painting to the Tate who have added it to their permanent collection.

More than 25,160 visitors attended the 44th annual Art & Antiques Fair, Olympia which concluded its seven day run yesterday.

Two finely carved marble figures of mourners from the tomb of Jean de France, the duc de Berry (1340-1416) brother of King Charles V of France were secured by the Louvre for €4.4m (£3.67m) at Christie’s Paris last week.

Two landscapes by 19th century European artists have been donated to the National Gallery by Asbjørn Lunde, an American of Norwegian extraction who is one of the world’s top collectors in the field.

Oxford’s Bodleian Library has acquired a map of Middle-earth annotated by JRR Tolkien (1892-1973).

A portrait by Eugène Delacroix redolent with associations to Nineteenth century French Romanticism has been secured by the Paris museum dedicated to his work.

A large drawing by Edgar Degas (1834-1917) which has never been exhibited before has gone on display at Pallant House Gallery after being acquired by the Chichester gallery via the Acceptance in Lieu scheme.

A Russian malachite and ormolu chimney went on show last week at the museum at Cliffe Castle in Keighley more than half a century after it left the property.

A museum in Switzerland has acquired this extraordinary monkey band automaton at an online-only auction conducted by East Bristol Auctions, in Hanham, Bristol.