Slipping through the safety net

If a French national museum wishes to buy a work of art at auction, it simply exercises its ‘right of pre-emption’. Substituting itself for the final bidder, which is what this means, is less fair than it sounds – word invariably gets out about the museum’s intentions and few bother to bid. In France, as in Italy, Germany and Spain, any work of art deemed of national importance cannot legally leave its shores, a circumstance which once again significantly reduces its market value. Good news for the cultural patrimony, perhaps, but rather less cheery for the owner. Britain’s approach, in contrast, is the most liberal in Europe – its system of controlling the export of national treasures while acknowledging the property rights of the individual is peerless. The only problem is that it no longer protects our national heritage.

In 1950, in an attempt to stem the flood of works of art being sold – principally to America – from bankrupted landed estates, the Chancellor of the Exchequer appointed a committee under the chairmanship of Lord Waverley to advise on government export policy and a mechanism for implementing it. Thus the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art was born. This week, this independent advisory body – now under the aegis of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport – celebrated its 50th anniversary at a party attended by the great and good at Spencer House. It was, as its chairman since 1995, Sir John Guinness, put it, as much a wake as a celebration.

The good news is that, since its inception, the Waverley system has been responsible for saving for the nation some 300 items -paintings, drawings, sculpture, silver, ceramics, furniture, textiles, armour, manuscripts and books – ranging from the likes of the mediaeval Middleham Jewel, which went to the Yorkshire Museum, to Canova’s ‘Three Graces’ (shared by Edinburgh and the V&A) and a John Donne letter now at the Bodleian Library.