Museums and Institutions

LORD Ashcroft’s Victoria Cross collection – the largest in the world – is to go on public display following his £5m donation to the Imperial War Museum. The news comes as the museum has also received a donation from the Art Fund to purchase an important watercolur by Keith Vaughan (1912-1977) at auction.

AN historic and important medieval scientific instrument, known as the Canterbury Quadrant, has been saved for the nation. St James’s specialist dealers Trevor Philip and Sons have sold the quadrant to the British Museum for £411,250.

This year's annual Royal College Art graduate summer exhibition, entitled Show RCA, includes the work of over 400 contemporary art and design students, most of which will be for sale or available for commission.

The Louvre have secured the return of a French Crown Jewel after 121 years, through a private sale with Christie’s New York.

The Harris Museum & Art Gallery in Preston, Lancashire will unveil a new Ceramics and Glass Gallery on May 14.

Kensington Church Street dealer Paul Reeves did a double-take at Sotheby’s earlier this month. As well as curating their March 20 mixed-owner decorative arts sale titled The Best of British, he also mounted a week-long selling exhibition of his own stock under the same title in their Bond Street Galleries.

AS part of this year’s 550th anniversary of hallmarking in Scotland, the National Museum of Scotland are hosting The Scottish Seminar from April 11-13.

Anthony d’Offay’s decision to sell his art collection to the nation for a fraction of its value has sparked a new programme of acquiring and exhibiting works by contemporary artists for the nation.

A MAJOR policy shift by the Museums Association means British museums will now consider selling at auction as a way to safeguard core collections for the future.

A particularly impressive and well-provenanced example of cabinetmaking by the celebrated firm Gillows of Lancaster has returned home.

Sotheby’s have agreed to sponsor Tate Britain’s Duveens Commission, thereby allowing this site-specific sculpture commission to become an annual rather than a biennial event.

THE British Museum were credited with uncovering the fraud that led to the jailing of serial faker Shaun Greenhalgh two weeks ago, while auction houses and the trade were criticised for selling his work.

THE Gilbert Collection is to move from Somerset House on London’s Embankment to the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington next year.

A FUNDING crisis means the Percival David Foundation collection of Chinese ceramics will move from the University of London’s School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS) to the British Museum.

Art dealer Andrew Sim has sold a watercolour by Richard Dadd (1817-1886) to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. It is the first work by the enigmatic Victorian artist to enter the museum’s vast art collection.

Asian Art in London celebrates its tenth anniversary from November 1 to 10 and as part of the anniversary celebrations will join with the British Museum to hold a Study Day around the exhibition The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army on November 10. Tickets for the day cost £22 (contact 0207 323 8181).

HERITAGE grants have helped the British Museum acquire the 15th century illuminated manuscript known as the Wardington Hours.

The Victoria and Albert Museum have secured the funds to acquire this spectacular early 18th century French silver ewer and basin commissioned by John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough.

After a year-long fund-raising effort, The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has just secured the future of its most impressive Chelsea porcelain exhibit.

The Museum in Docklands have acquired a rare and significant archive of 18th century papers highlighting London’s role in the transatlantic slave trade.