A TEMPORARY EXPORT BAN FOR RAPHAEL’S $47.6 MILLION DRAWING

The United Kingdom has placed a temporary export bar on the Raphael drawing that fetched a record $47.6 million at an auction in London in December, reports Scott Reyburn for Bloomberg. Culture minister Margaret Hodge followed the advice of the reviewing committee on the export of works of art and objects of cultural interest, run by the Museums, Libraries, and Archives Council, the release said.

“The Committee recommended the export decision be deferred on the grounds that the drawing is of outstanding significance for the study of Raphael’s work,” said the statement. The committee awarded the drawing a starred rating, signifying that “every possible effort” should be made to raise the funds to keep the work in the United Kingdom, said the statement.

The black-chalk study for the head of a muse in Raphael’s 1510–11 Vatican fresco Parnassus was sold at Christie’s International on December 8. The heirs of the British collector Norman Colville, with a low estimate, had entered the drawing. It was bought on the telephone, dealers said, by the collector Leon Black, chief executive of Apollo Global Management and a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The price was an auction record for any work of art on paper.

The decision on the export license will be deferred until May 25. This period may be extended until November 25 if a United Kingdom–based purchaser expresses a serious intention to match the recommended price of $43.6 million, the department’s release said.