Private collection of Italian art transferred to UK galleries

A private collection of 57 paintings of Italian Baroque, owned by the family of Denis Mahon (Denis Mahon) transferred according to his will to six museums and galleries in the UK. Experts estimate the collection in the amount of more than 100 million pounds (154 million US dollars).

Denis Mahon

The paintings will be kept in the respective museums, provided that they cannot be sold or removed from the exhibition. These conditions are considered especially important at the present time, since the reduction in state funding puts art institutions in a difficult financial situation, the way out of which is often to sell a particular painting.

For example, one of the districts of London is going to sell a sculpture of Henry Moore, worth up to 20 million pounds, despite the wish of the late artist that it was always exhibited in the public domain.

Mahon, a well-known collector and historian, died in 2011, at the age of 100, and left his collections to the charity Art Fund with instructions on how paintings should be exhibited.

In accordance with the terms of transferring the collection to state ownership, the Foundation’s trustees reserve the right to withdraw works from those museums that violate the terms of the contract at any time.

"Sir Denis Maon took an active part in the work of the Fund, in particular, was a supporter of expanding free access to the most significant works of art," said Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund.

Machon spent most of his life studying mainly the works of 17th-century Italian baroque art, including the work of Guido Reni, Domenichino, Ludovico Carracci, and Luca Giordano.

Out of a total of 57 works, 25 were donated to the National Gallery in London, 12 to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, 8 to the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh, 6 to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, 5 to the museums and art gallery of Birmingham, and one work was donated to the Newsam House Temple in Leeds.

Anna Sidorova