Museums and Institutions

How much would 700 chickens, 2000 of the finest fish or 11,000 pints of beer cost you these days? A hoard of 1857 Roman coins discovered in the north of England would buy any of those options.

The triumphal portrait of Elizabeth I has become public property with the help of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant and £1.5m pounds raised in public donations.

Without computers, virtual reality was a very different concept 200 years ago. Clever use of optics and illusion was the key, as a paper peepshow collection given to London’s Victoria and Albert Museums demonstrates beautifully.

The Bowes Museum has secured funding at a sum of nearly £2.3m to keep an exit-barred painting attributed to the workshop of Dieric Bouts the Elder in the UK.

The Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim has had to close a major exhibition after collectors withdrew their loans following the approval of Germany’s new Cultural Property Protection Act.

Phillips are hosting an exhibition of late works by Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) in collaboration with the Hepworth Wakefield.

Two finely carved marble figures of mourners from the tomb of Jean de France, the duc de Berry (1340-1416) brother of King Charles V of France were secured by the Louvre for €4.4m (£3.67m) at Christie’s Paris last week.

Sacha Llewellyn is a co-founder of Liss Llewellyn Fine Art, which specialises in reappraising under-represented artists of the past.

Royal Museums Greenwich are attempting to raise £10m to buy a version of The Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I. The work currently belongs to descendants of Sir Francis Drake but the institution say that unless the required funds are raised, the painting “could be sold on the open market and even go overseas”.

Two landscapes by 19th century European artists have been donated to the National Gallery by Asbjørn Lunde, an American of Norwegian extraction who is one of the world’s top collectors in the field.

Christie’s are to sell another major slice of deaccessioned material from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, just under a year after they held a dedicated auction devoted to a dispersal from the Met’s holdings of English furniture and works of art.

Oxford’s Bodleian Library has acquired a map of Middle-earth annotated by JRR Tolkien (1892-1973).

A portrait by Eugène Delacroix redolent with associations to Nineteenth century French Romanticism has been secured by the Paris museum dedicated to his work.

Just before Easter, the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising in Notting Hill wrapped up 14,000 pieces of design dating from the Victorian era to the present day.

A large drawing by Edgar Degas (1834-1917) which has never been exhibited before has gone on display at Pallant House Gallery after being acquired by the Chichester gallery via the Acceptance in Lieu scheme.

Francesca Leoni, the Yousef Jameel Curator of Islamic Art at the Ashmolean Museum, will be the headlining speaker at the 2016 LAPADA Art and Antiques Fair taking place from September 13-18 in Berkeley Square, London.

John Wood the Elder’s (1704-54) set of drawing instruments were offered at Clevedon Auction Rooms earlier this month and were bought by the Bath Preservation Trust for £21,000.

The Design Museum will be reopening at its new site in London on November 24. It had originally been thought that the relaunch would be in the summer.

A Russian malachite and ormolu chimney went on show last week at the museum at Cliffe Castle in Keighley more than half a century after it left the property.

Works by Picasso, Matisse and Graham Sutherland all form part of an extraordinary collection built up by a former binman and school caretaker, Michael Woodford, who died last year aged 76.