Museum acquisitions

An autobiographical manuscript by a Georgian pharmacist in Dorset will return to the county after the local museum purchased it at auction.

The nation’s museums have benefitted from more than 30 art and objects via tax saving schemes.

Three photographs of computing pioneer Ada Lovelace (1815-52) have been acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in a private treaty sale.

A snuff-box made for Madame Adélaïde has set an auction record for a Sèvres box, selling for £150,000 (or a premium-inclusive £190,900).

Arts charity Jerwood Foundation has purchased a William Coldstream (1908-87) sketch from an art dealer in Somerset.

A 15th century Flemish devotional triptych discovered in an almshouse in Dorset is to be offered at auction next month with an estimate of £2.5m-3.5m.

Art and antiquities dealers Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch have sold two glass items to a US museum.

An enlarged copy of the original ‘His Masters Voice’ picture by Francis Barraud (1856-1924) is now on display at a museum in Rochester.

The J Paul Getty Museum has purchased a Hellenistic gold box-bezel ring, describing it as “one of the finest and best-preserved surviving examples of this ancient jewellery type”.

A group of woodblocks from artists Eric Ravilious and Tirzah Garwood that had been missing for 72 years has been recovered and purchased by two museums.

The identity of the mystery sitter in a portrait sold at a Sussex auction, who was depicted in the uniform of a cavalry regiment and wearing a Waterloo Medal, has now been revealed by the National Army Museum.

The British Museum is trying to raise funds to buy a gold pendant discovered by a metal detectorist in a field in Warwickshire in 2019.

The Gordon Russell Design Museum in Broadway, Worcestershire is fundraising ahead of an auction.

A portrait of King Edward VI that sold at a Roseberys auction earlier this year has gone on public display at Hampton Court Palace.

A rare collaborative work by Duncan Grant (1885-1978) and his lover, the Russian-American artist George Bergen (1903-84), has sold at auction to Charleston, the East Sussex farmhouse where the painting was created.