Crying wolf?
Sir: Brian Sewell's article 'The tale of Anne Killigrew' (27 August) is full of sound and fury, but not of facts. The picture was offered under the private treaty arrange- ments not only to the National Gallery, but also to two leading provincial galleries before it was put on the open market. The National Portrait Gallery was also informed of the sale. In fact, Sir Oliver Millar was aware of the 'impending export' as he himself was consulted by the prospective purchaser on the merit of the picture. The picture has been sold to an American museum, not in the trade, and the museum will announce the purchase in the next few months, when the cleaning of the picture has been completed. In fact, the price was neither £1.3 million nor in the low hundreds of thousands. I do not, personally, consider the picture to be 'run of the mill', but a work of great beauty and importance; but equally I do not consider that, within the context of Van Dyck portraits in British collections, both public and private, it is 'of such outstanding aesthetic quality that its export would be a serious loss to the country'. That is the criterion on which any attempt to activate the machinery for the prevention of export must be based. The present export licence system has worked extremely well for over 30 years, because it has kept a fair balance between the interests of the 'national heritage' and those of the owners of works of art. It is not subject to 'the pressures of the art trade', nor, for that matter, of anyone else.
All of which facts are only of importance because if Mr. Sewell and others concerned for the national heritage insist on crying wolf without even bothering to look outside the door, one day they may cry wolf where there would be a real loss to the heritage — and nobody will pay any attention.
Julian Agnew
Thos Agnew & Sons Ltd, 43 Old Bond Street, London WI.
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