Museum acquisitions

Museums often acquire works through donations but, in spite of funding constraints, they also make purchases to expand their collections, either bidding at auctions, negotiating private treaty sales or, in the UK, via the Acceptance in Lieu scheme.


Wedgwood First Day’s vase

New grant helps funding appeal to keep Wedgwood First Day’s vase in Stoke on Trent

17 March 2017

Stoke-on-Trent’s Potteries Museum & Art Gallery is hopeful of raising nearly half a million pounds to buy a Wedgwood First Day’s vase after it was awarded a £90,000 grant from the Art Fund.

Fuller 2283DD 03-03-17.jpg

Sim Fine Art sells domestic painting of lazy Sunday to London's Geffrye Museum

13 March 2017

Sim Fine Art has made its second sale to a major London institution in two years with the sale of a painting the Geffrye Museum.

Faberge

Harrogate museum acquires Fabergé cutlery set for £20,000 at auction

03 March 2017

Dealer Wartski has bought a boxed set of Fabergé cutlery at auction for the Royal Pump Room Museum in Harrogate.

Bronze Etruscan statuette

London art dealer helps stolen bronze return to Berlin museum after 70 years

02 March 2017

A bronze Etruscan statuette that was stolen from Berlin’s Antikensammlung during the Second World War has been returned after the intervention of London dealers Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch.

Antique George II table

Chelsea dealer sells George II table to Leeds’ Temple Newsam House

16 February 2017

The London dealer Godson and Coles of Fulham Road has concluded the sale of this George II period brass-inlaid mahogany metamorphic table to Temple Newsam House.

Parmigianino

Export bar issued for Parmigianino from Sudeley Castle bought by Getty Museum

10 February 2017

An oil painting by Parmigianino has been barred from export in the hope £24.5m can be raised to keep it in the UK.

LOPF looking

Applications open for museums’ print fair acquisitions prize

31 January 2017

UK museums and galleries have the chance to add to this print collection this year with the help of an award at the London Original Print Fair (LOPF).

Box from the reign of Amenhotep II

Dealer helps Scottish museum piece together Egyptian treasure

25 January 2017

Antiquities specialist Charles Ede has revealed its role in helping National Museums Scotland complete one of the Egyptian treasures in its collection.

2275 NE Yortan jug Adam Partridge and Thelma Bishop.jpg

Bronze Age jug returned to Turkey

17 January 2017

A Bronze Age artefact from Anatolia has been returned to Turkey after a ceremony at the Turkish Embassy in London.

16th century large-scale portrait of Queen Elizabeth I

Review of the Year 2016 - Saved for the Nation

27 December 2016

Important works of art sold to overseas buyers are typically subject to temporary export bans in the hope that a buyer can be found to keep them in the UK - here we offer our top five 2016 purchases

HK pirate painting

Dealer Roger Keverne donates pirate painting to Hong Kong museum

15 December 2016

Asian art dealers Roger and Miranda Keverne donated a Chinese export painting, depicting pirates on the China coast, to the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.

Nonsuch

Watercolour of Henry VIII’s famed lost Palace of Nonsuch saved for the nation

09 December 2016

The earliest and most detailed depiction of Henry VIII’s famed lost Palace of Nonsuch will soon be on public display after The Victoria & Albert Museum saved it for the nation.

Gold torc

Museums offered chance to buy metal detectorist’s Bronze Age gold torc

29 November 2016

A 3000-year old torc found in a field in east Cambridgeshire is one of the largest and heaviest to be unearthed in the UK.

V&A

The Victoria & Albert Museum unveils 500 objects from its Gilbert Collection

22 November 2016

The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Galleries in the Victoria & Albert Museum has re-opened with more than 500 objects on display, free to the public.

Mirror frame

Dealer helps Fitzwilliam track down trophy mirror in France

21 November 2016

The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge hopes to raise the final £65,000 needed to buy a 17th century gilded mirror frame for its collection.

Lagrenee NG

Old Master painting from Brian Sewell collection donated to The National Gallery

19 November 2016

The National Gallery has received one of the paintings from the collection of the late art critic Brian Sewell.

Monarch of the Glen

Monarch of the Glen withdrawn from Christie’s auction as museum and owner make deal

17 November 2016

Edwin Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen has been withdrawn from auction at Christie’s following an agreement between the consignor and the National Galleries of Scotland to help the museum retain the iconic painting.

coins at Yorkshire

The Yorkshire Museum acquires second largest Roman coin hoard ever found

10 November 2016

The Yorkshire Museum has acquired the Wold Newton Hoard after receiving funds totalling £44,200.

Prince of Wales

Mason museum buys rare glass painting of Grand Master

09 November 2016

The Library and Museum of Freemasonry in London has revealed the latest addition to its collection.

hoard

Ashmolean Museum aims to save Anglo-Saxon hoard before it gets "broken up"

07 November 2016

The Ashmolean Museum has made a significant stride towards the retention of a Viking hoard with the receipt of a grant of more than £1.1m from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

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