Museum acquisitions

The latest sales announced by The European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF) following recent fairs in Maastricht and New York included purchases by more than 40 different museums.

A painting believed to be the earliest known depiction of the game of ‘colf’ – a forerunner of golf played on frozen water in the Netherlands – has been bought jointly by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and The Mauritshuis in The Hague.

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas has acquired a bronze sculpture by Stefano Maderno (c.1571-1636) from art dealer Patricia Wengraf.

A portrait miniature of Anne Lefroy, a writer who was close friends and a mentor of Jane Austen, has been acquired by Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, Hampshire.

A rare portrait sculpture of a scandalous Victorian heiress that sold at auction has been acquired by Buscot Park following a temporary export bar.

Modern British artist Joan Warburton (1920-1996) is having a moment in the art market.

Among the museum purchases at TEFAF Maastricht earlier this year was a table sold by a Brighton dealer to Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in a deal that has just been announced.

A drawing from the early part of Thomas Gainsborough's (1727-88) career, dating from 1748 when the artist was 20 years old, sold to the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cheffins' latest fine art sale.

One of a group of seven 16th century tapestries that hung in Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk until they were sold at auction in 1924 has returned home after the National Trust was able to purchase it from an antiques dealer following TEFAF Maastricht last year.

Two decorative sculptures of blackbirds that once sat atop washing line posts in a north London housing estate have returned home following a fundraising campaign launched by a local museum.

A rare Roman gold ring, discovered alongside a hoard of coins, has been purchased by the South West Heritage Trust.

Lambeth’s Garden Museum is hoping to raise £420,000 to purchase a portrait of the gardener and plantsman John Ystumllyn (1736-86/88), one of the earliest recorded black gardeners in Britain.