Museum acquisitions

Fundraising led by writers’ association English PEN has helped save for the nation the judge’s annotated copy of 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover'.

A Hellenistic marble stele that was received as a wedding present in the 1950s has been returned to a museum in Germany after an investigation by antiquities dealers and an Oxford scholar.

A 26-foot long kinetic sculpture by Rowland Emett (1906-90) who designed the magical car in the eponymous 1960s film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has been sold by Bonhams for a six-figure sum to the National Railway Museum in York.

A Bath museum hopes to acquire a rare hoard of coins found in a Chew Valley field that could be valued at £4m.

Jane Austen's House Museum in Hampshire successfully raised the £35,000 required to buy a fragment of a letter written by the great novelist in 1814. The rare manuscript was being sold on behalf of its private owner by London dealer Maggs.

The De Morgan Foundation is launching a series of initiatives to bring the works of Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919) and her husband William (1839-1917) to a wider audience.

A painting of the early Christian martyr St Agatha by Italian artist Carlo Dolci (1616-87) will return to Osterley Park and House in Middlesex where it once hung.

A view of the River Seine by Richard Parkes Bonington (1802-28) has entered the collection of The National Gallery in London under the acceptance in lieu scheme.

A curator of archaeology at the Yorkshire Museum in York and an assistant curator of ceramics at The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent are among the winners of theArt Fund’s latest annual New Collecting Awards.

A JMW Turner landscape valued at £10m will be exported overseas unless funding can be raised to keep it in the UK.

The estate of Cornish artist Peter Lanyon’s (1918-64) widow, Sheila Lanyon, has agreed a tax deal allowing three pictures by the artist to be acquired by the nation for museums across the country.

A fundraising campaign has helped save a portrait of Charles Dickens (1812-70) rediscovered by dealer Philip Mould.

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.