Exit, unfunded?

摘要

Painting, said Ambrose Bierce, is "the art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic". In Titian's case, the critics have purred with enthusiasm. Lucian Freud hailed the two paintings offered for sale by the Duke of Sutherland, Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto, as "simply the most beautiful pictures in the world". And the Bridgewater Collection to which they belong is widely regarded as the world's most important private collection of Old Masters.rnYet keeping the paintings in the country will be a struggle. Although the duke is offering the Titians for much less than their market price, the National Galleries in England and Scotland still have to find ￡100m-almost five times the highest amount ever raised to keep art in Britain. And Britain's notoriously liberal art-export laws do not provide much of a safety net. Between 1995 and 2005,211 works of art totalling ￡274m in value were judged pre-eminent and worth keeping; yet money could be raised to hang on to only ￡105m-worth of them.