Mr. Alan Lee Williamsasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has yet reached a decision on the recommendations in the 12th Report of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art.
§ Miss Jennie LeeYes. I wrote to Lord Cottesloe, the Chairman of the Committee, on 7th February giving the reasons why the Government are unable to accept these recommendations. I have since discussed the matter with Lord Cottesloe and Lord Robbins, but the view of the Government remains unchanged.
The following is the text of the letter to Lord Cottesloe:
From THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY
UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE
Curzon Street, London, W.1.
Hyde Park 7070
7th February, 1966
I have carefully considered the recommendations in your Twelfth Report.
The first and second concerned the establishment of a special purchase fund to finance special grants for major purchases of works of art of national importance when this is necessary to ensure their retention in this country. In specific terms these proposals were that a fund of £1 million should be set aside for this purpose and that the fund should be replenished whenever it fell below£½million.
I appreciate the concern of your Committee to find a way of ensuring that works of art falling within the category referred to are acquired for the country, but the desirability of this has to be balanced against the cost which would be imposed on public funds. The present arrangements for achieving this balance are, as you know, to make each of the various museums and galleries an annual 43W purchase grant to be spent as its trustees see fit. In addition, application may be made for special grants to finance the purchase of works of art where the money that is required cannot be found within the annual grant. Each such application is considered on its merits, and the factors taken into account are the degree of desirability of acquiring the work in question for the country, the size of the grant sought, the extent to which other outside sources of finance have been offered, and whether it is accepted that the gallery or museum will not be able to make the purchase without a special grant.
The second of these factors, the size of the grant required, is necessarily of great importance to the Government: desirable though it may be to retain a particular picture or work of art in the country by buying it for a gallery or museum, the final decision whether or not to do so must depend on the amount of public money needed for the purpose and be a matter for the judgment of the Government, subject to the approval of Parliament.
The importance of this consideration is especially evident at a time when the prices of works of art have reached higher levels than ever before. Nevertheless, as your Committee knows, it has been found possible in recent years to acquire several important works with the help of special grants, some of them of large amount. A list of such grants awarded since 1958–9 is appended to this letter.
In the light of these considerations the Government cannot accept that the present system of annual purchase grants for each gallery or museum, coupled with the possibility of obtaining special grants for particular purchases, can be considered to have proved unsatisfactory merely because all the works which it would be desirable to acquire if money were no object, are not acquired under its operation. There must be control by Government and Parliament of how much public money is spent on works of art and this necessity inevitably carries with it the possibility that some works will be lost.
The proposals of your Committee would in effect remove this risk of loss by removing the control. The body administering a fund of £1 million which was automatically replenished whenever it fell below £½ million would dispose of unlimited resources for making purchases save only that, at the beginning of each "fund" cycle, no single work could be bought if it cost more than £1 million, this upper limit falling by stages, as purchases were made, to £½ million and then automatically rising again to £1 million. There would be no other limit on the expenditure which could be incurred and the level of the upper limit on the single purchases at any point of time would be quite arbitrary within the £1 million to £½ million range.
Such a system would be quite unacceptable to the Government if control of the fund were vested outside the Government. If, however, control were vested in the Government, the system would in all essentials be the same as the present system of special grants, save for the new and varying limit on single grants.
44WEach case, as now, would have to be considered by the Government on its merits and it would in no way make it easier to reach a favourable decision that an artificial "fund" has been established. The decision to be reached would be precisely the same, namely, whether in all the circumstances it was, or was not, proper to spend the amount of public money required to buy the work in question. The money would have to be found at that point of time and would have to be voted as a "supplementary" in that financial year. The expenditure would have to be justified in exactly the same way as though no "fund" with its arbitrary, and perhaps cramping, rules existed.
As mention is made of the Land Fund in the Committee's Report, I should add that its use in this context would not alter the position as set out above.
What I have said means, as you will appreciate, that I cannot accept the recommendations of your Committee in this matter. Granted the need for effective control by the Government of public expenditure in this field, I am satisfied that the present system of annual purchase grants, supported by special grants when necessary, is the simplest and most satisfactory way of ensuring that our galleries and museums acquire as many of the important works of art which come on the market as is possible within the limits of the resources which it is judged right to make available for the purpose.
The third recommendation was that "the recommendations of the report of the augmented Committee on the sale of works of art by public bodies should be examined by the Government with a view to their early acceptance and implementation". The report referred to is that submitted to the previous Government on 3rd January, 1964, and published later that year. I have carefully studied this report and its recommendations and have regretfully come to the conclusion that they cannot be accepted. My reasons are as follows.
The principal recommendations would involve placing public or semi-public bodies under special disabilities, not suffered by private persons or institutions, when seeking permission to export works of art judged to be of national importance.
The Committee recommended that for these purposes public or semi-public bodies should be understood to mean bodies the main part of whose revenues are derived from the public through rates or taxes, or trusts entitled to the relief from taxation accorded to charities.
The special disability to which I refer above would be that in the case of works of art of the kind referred to which had a value of £25,000 or more, an export licence should be refused unconditionally in the case of public and semi-public bodies whereas in the case of other persons and bodies such refusal is conditional on an offer being made within a reasonable time to purchase the object at a fair price for retention in the U.K.
The Committee recommend that where, in cases coming under the above rule, an export 45W licence is refused unconditionally, "the Government should usually be prepared to negotiate for the purchase of the object or collection concerned". They propose rules which should govern the prices to be offered in such negotiation.
I will not go into details about difficulties which would seem likely to arise in operating such a system. This is unnecessary because I regard it as impossible to accept the recommendations on a more fundamental ground than difficulties of operation, namely the inequity of placing public or semi-public bodies in a less favourable financial position in respect of the sale of works of art in their possession than private bodies or persons. All would be in the same position inasmuch as they might be refused permission to export works of art of national importance but whereas in the case of private bodies or persons this would not happen unless they were guaranteed a "fair price", in the case of the public or semi-public bodies there would be no such guarantee. The Government cannot adopt a policy which would place a charity in a less favourable position regarding the sale of its property than a private individual or institution. In these circumstances you will understand why I do not consider it necessary to consider other possible difficulties in the scheme proposed.
I am, as you will appreciate, very sorry to have felt bound to come to these negative conclusions about all three of the recommendations you put before me. I am most grateful to you and to the members of the Committee—and also to the members of the extended Committee which prepared the 1964 special report—for the great care and thoroughness with which they examined these difficult problems.
It would seem to me right that the conclusions I have reached, as set out above, should be made public. But before taking steps to do this, I shall await your views, in particular as to timing.
46W
MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES Special Purchase Grants 1st April, 1958—31st January, 1966 1958–59 £ British Museum 50,000 Ilbert Collection of Watches Dyson Perrins Manuscripts Lycurgus Cup National Gallery Paolo Uccello, "St. George and the Dragon" 60,000 Royal Scottish Museum Henry VIII Silver Gilt Cup 5,900 1959–60 National Gallery Rembrandt, "Portrait of a Man on Horseback" 128,000 Tate Gallery Stubbs, "Mares and Foals in a Landscape" 7,500 National Gallery of Scotland Gerard David, "Legend of St. Nicholas" 30,000 National Library of Scotland Books from the Signet Library 20,000 47W
£ National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland Mary Queen of Scots Cameo Jewel 2,750 National Museum of WalesTwo silver Queen Anne Wall Sconces 1,600 National Library of Wales Book of Llandaff and other manu scripts from the Gwysaney Collection 1,000 Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (through Victoria and Albert Museum Fund) Rubens, "Holy Family". 25,000 1960–61 National Gallery Gainsborough, "Mr. and Mrs. Robert Andrews" 75,000 Tate Gallery Matisse, "Nu Debout" 16,000 National Gallery of Scotland Claude, "Landscape with Apollo, the Muses and a River God " 30,000 National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland 17th Century Silver Tankard 700 1961–62 National Gallery Renoir, "La Danseuse au Tam borin" and "La Danseuse aux Castagnettes" 163,500 Goya, "The Duke of Wellington" 40,000 National Portrait Gallery Samual Cooper, Miniature of John Maitland, First Duke of Lauderdale 1,925 Nicholas Hilliard, Miniature of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester National Library of Scotland Iona Psalter 3,200 National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland Karnes Brooch 2,000 National Library of Wales Caernarvon Book of Hours 830 1962–63 National Maritime Museum Palmer Collection of Marine Paintings 35,000 National Gallery of Scotland Gainsborough, "Rocky Mountain Landscape with Sheep". 14,000 National Art-Collections Fund Leonardo Cartoon Appeal 350,000 Ferens Art Gallery, Hull (through Victoria and Albert Museum Fund) Franz Hals, "Portrait of a Young Lady" 5,000 1963–64 British Museum Mediaeval Gittern 35,000 Pieter Breughel the Elder, Drawing Romanesque Whalebone Panels 13,000 Raphael, Drawing Victoria and Albert Museum Giovanni Pisano, Bust of a Prophet 27,000 Silver from Brownlow Collection Silver from Wentworth Collection Medal Cabinet by William Vile 5,000 Imperial War Museum Objects from the R.U.S.I. Museum 1,128
£ National Gallery Monet, "Nirvana Jaune". 35,000 National Museum of Wales A. Cuyp, "Landscape with a view of Ubbergen Castle 15,000 National Maritime Museum Objects from the R.U.S.I. Museum 2,600 1964–65 National Maritime Museum Van de Velde the Elder, "Dutch") Men of War Becalmed 15,000 Van de Velde the Younger, "Beach Scene" National Gallery Courbet, "Les Demoiselles des Bords de la Seine" 41,000 Cezanne, "Les Grandes Baigneuses" 125,000 1965–66 National Portrait Gallery Sir Joshua Reynolds, "Portrait of James Boswell" 20,000 Tate Gallery Hogarth, "Portrait of Ashley with his wife and daughter" 6,450 Hogarth, "Satan, Sin and Death" 7,500 Victoria and Albert Museum Whalebone Pectoral Cross 30,000