London’s National Gallery Raises $25.5 Million to Buy Its First Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi’s Father, Orazio Gentileschi

It took nearly 25 years, but London’s National Gallery has finally
acquired Orazio Gentileschi’s masterpiece
The Finding of Moses (early 1630s), which has been on
display in its galleries for so long that many assumed it was
already part of the collection.

Today, the museum announced that it has
raised the final £2 million ($2.6 million) needed to purchase
the painting, which is worth £22 million ($28.8 million), but is
being sold to the museum for a reduced price of £19.5 million
($25.5 million) thanks to a deal arranged with Sotheby’s London and
London’s Pyms Gallery.

“This beautiful painting, which has been an important focal
point of the National Gallery’s collection for so long, will now
remain on permanent display for current and future generations to
study, admire, and be inspired by,” culture secretary Nicky Morgan
told the Irish
News. Only one other work by Orazio Gentileschi is in
a public collection in the UK.

The National Gallery first attempted to acquire the painting
back in 1995. But when it came up at auction at Sotheby’s London,
the museum lost out to sofa billionaire Graham Kirkham, who snapped
up the masterpiece for just £43,300
($66,779), according to the Artnet Price Database.

Gentileschi, who is the father of an even more famous artist,
Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, created The Finding
of Moses during his 12-year stint as a court painter for King
Charles I to honor the birth the future King Charles II.

“It was the most glorious moment of art patronage in this
country when Rubens, Van Dyke, and Orazio Gentileschi, and indeed
Artemisia were rubbing shoulders in London at court,” National
Gallery director Gabriele Finaldi, who was the museum’s Italian
paintings curator during the previous purchase attempt, told
the Guardian.

With the fall of the British monarchy in 1649, the painting left
the royal collection. After the Restoration, the late king’s widow,
Henrietta Marie, took it back to her native France, and eventually
gave it to a son-in-law, the Duke of Orléans. Much of the Orléans
collection was sold in London in 1798, including The
Finding of Moses, to Castle Howard in York, England.

The Howard family held on to the work for nearly two centuries
before it passed to Kirkham, who also sold five of his Old Master
paintings at Sotheby’s London in July for £26 million ($34
million). After its purchase, The Finding of
Moses traveled to the National Galleries of Scotland and
to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles before going on
long-term loan to the National Gallery in London in 2002.

The museum’s campaign to purchase the work was announced in
November, with funds coming from a variety of sources:
£500,000 ($653,000) from gifts willed to the museum; £5
million ($6.53 million) from the National
Gallery Trust; £8.5 million ($11.1 million) from the
American Friends of the National Gallery; £2.5 million ($3.26
million) from the National Heritage Memorial Fund; £1
million ($1.3 million) from the Art Fund; and the £2
million ($2.6 million) balance from the public.

“From the small gifts of a few pounds to those of many
thousands, I am really thrilled that so many people have
contributed in the last lap of the campaign to enable us to acquire
the painting for the nation,” said Finaldi. “Big donors and little
ones have ensured that The Finding of Moses can be enjoyed
by all. Our thanks to all of them.”

The museum is planning an exhibition in
April of paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi, whose
work it acquired for the first
time in 2018.

The post London’s National Gallery Raises $25.5 Million to
Buy Its First Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi’s Father, Orazio
Gentileschi appeared first on artnet News.