NATIONAL GALLERY TAKES A GAMBLE IN BID FOR RAPHAEL

The National Gallery has taken a gamble in its battle to keep Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks in Britain, Maev Kennedy reports in The Guardian. The painting has been on loan to the gallery since 1992, but the Getty Museum has offered its owner twenty-nine million pounds for it. Now the National Gallery must raise money for a counteroffer, and it is looking to the UK’s heritage lottery fund for help. Convinced that fund administrators would turn down a request for too large a sum, the gallery has decided to ask for only twelve million pounds and will try to raise the additional money elsewhere.