Displaying items by tag: culture minister

The Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has put a temporary export bar on 'Portrait of a Young Man in a Red Cap' by Pontormo to provide the opportunity to save it for the nation. 

The painting is one of only 15 portraits by the old master in existence. The majority of the works are located in Italy.

The UK culture minister has delayed issuing an export license on Rembrandt’s Portrait of Catrina Hooghsaet (1657), which has been in the UK for over 250 years but was recently sold to a foreign buyer for £35m. The painting is particularly popular with the public because Hooghsaet, a wealthy Amsterdam woman, is shown with her pet parrot—who was named in her will—not her estranged husband.

Earlier this year, the Rembrandt was sold by the Douglas-Pennant family, whose home is Penrhyn Castle, a National Trust mansion in north Wales. The portrait had hung there since 1860.

The Netherlands and France will together buy two rare Rembrandts for a total of €160m (£118m), the Dutch culture minister has announced, after the two countries defused a potential bidding war.

The 17th-century paintings, which belong to the Rothschild banking family and have rarely been seen in public, will alternate between the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Louvre in Paris, Jet Bussemaker said in a letter to the Dutch parliament.

German public broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), which controversially put some of its art collection up for sale to pay off debts, has been banned from exporting two paintings by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Max Beckmann.

A spokesperson for North-Rhine Westphalia's culture minister Ute Schäfer confirmed that the state filed a request to add the works to the list of nationally important cultural goods, Rheinische Post reported.

The very first eyewitness representation of Niagara Falls, a 1762 topographical watercolor by Thomas Davies, is at risk of being exported from the UK unless a buyer can be found to match the £151,800 asking price.

In order to provide a last chance to keep it in the UK, Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has placed a temporary export bar on the watercolor by Captain Thomas Davies, An East View of the Great Cataract of Niagara.

The topographical watercolor of Niagara Falls by Captain Thomas Davies provides the very first accurate portrait of this iconic landscape, which has become one of the most recognizable views in the world. It was also the earliest inclusion of Niagara’s ever-present rainbow.

Italy’s culture ministry has appointed 20 new directors to manage some of its top museums, including Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, with a number of foreigners brought in to revamp the way the country’s vast heritage is presented to the public.

Fourteen art historians, four archaeologists, one cultural manager and a museum specialist make up the new directors, who will be at the forefront of cultural reform in Italy. The majority have international backgrounds and half are women, although the culture minister, Dario Franceschini, said nationality and gender had no influence on Tuesday’s appointments.

The French government has imposed an export ban on three items which descendants of France's former royal family consigned to auction at Sotheby's Paris, Yahoo News reports.

France's culture minister Fleur Pellerin designated the items as pieces of “national treasure" to stop them from going under the hammer and from leaving the country.

Greece has ruled out taking legal action against the UK to reclaim the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum.

In an unexpected move, Greece's culture minister said the country would pursue a "diplomatic and political" approach to retrieving the sculptures instead.

In doing so, the country has rejected the advice of barrister Amal Clooney, who had urged Greece to take Britain to the International Court of Justice.

Germany said Wednesday experts had established a Camille Pissarro painting from the Cornelius Gurlitt art trove was looted by the Nazis and should be returned to the heirs of its rightful owners.

The oil painting from 1902 entitled "La Seine vue du Pont-Neuf, au fond le Louvre" (The Seine seen from the Pont Neuf) is "absolutely certain" to have been looted by Hitler's regime, the German culture ministry said.

"For the restitution, we are already in contact with the heiress of the former owner," Culture Minister Monika Gruetters said in a statement, without identifying the family.

The Musee d'Orsay has dropped its ban on visitors taking photos of artworks after France's culture minister openly flouted the restriction on Monday, sparking criticism.