Museum acquisitions

This Egyptian revival medal cabinet, considered one of the finest pieces of French Empire furniture in Britain, has been ‘saved for the nation’ after a campaign by the Victoria & Albert Museum was successful in raising £534,000.

A massive Coalport Feldspar porcelain jug painted with a study of Earl Spencer’s Durham Ox in a parkland setting has been bought by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

A pair of Primark jeans, a 3D-printed gun and Katy Perry branded fake eyelashes are just a few of the objects that will go on display in a new gallery at the Victoria & Albert Museum this summer.

The Kunstmuseum Bern has called the huge art bequest by Cornelius Gurlitt a “bolt from the blue, since at no time has Mr Gurlitt had any connection with” the museum.

Mystery surrounds the origin of a maple cabinet designed by Edward William Godwin and painted by James Abbott McNeill Whistler which has been bought by National Museums Scotland (NMS).

EXHIBITION – Edwin G. Lucas is not a name familiar to most, nor is the phrase ‘Scottish Surrealist’.

Salisbury Museum is hoping to host a remarkable hoard of Bronze Age jewellery in a new gallery set to open this summer.

Just over a year since closing its Albemarle Street gallery, the long-established London art dealership Agnew’s has been acquired by new owners.

The purchase of a George Bellows painting has signalled a major change in policy at the National Gallery, ending 190 years of showing only European artists.

The fundraising campaign to buy Van Dyck’s final self-portrait for the National Portrait Gallery will continue into the summer.

The British Museum and Wiltshire Museum have bought the Lacock Cup, a silver chalice made in the first half of the 15th century, for £1.3m.

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has been given an important private collection of modern and contemporary Chinese art.

This John Constable (1776-1837) portrait has been acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland from the estate of the artist Lucian Freud (1922-2011) through the Government’s Acceptance in Lieu scheme.

An 18th century casket made from fragments of Chinese porcelain has been bought by the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, County Durham.

An English provincial museum has been able to acquire an export-stopped Old Master painting for a knockdown price of £1.61m thanks to the vendor striking a tax deal.

An exceptional piece of 17th century Japanese export lacquer with a provenance to match has produced the highest auction price in France this year when it was sold to the Rijksmuseum for a hammer price of €5.9m (£5.26m).

The Christopher Dresser Society will be launched at Teesside University on June 20.

The original autograph draft manuscript for Gerard Manley Hopkins’ 1879 poem ‘Binsey Poplars’ has been acquired by the Bodleian Libraries.

The Design Museum has made its first significant fashion acquisition thanks to a donation by Jill Ritblat through the Art Fund.

The collection of close to 500 silver and gold objects donated to the Ashmolean museum in Oxford by the late dealer-collector Michael Wellby has been described as the most important bequest of its type for over a century.