The campaigns to save 'Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan' and 'The Rokeby Venus'

November 2006Two of the greatest works in UK public collections today, Holbein’s Christina of Denmark Duchess of Milan, and Velázquez’s ‘The Rokeby Venus’

In 1538, Hans Holbein was commissioned by Henry VIII to paint a portrait of a prospective queen - Christina of Denmark, a young widow. The subject of the resulting painting was much admired by Henry and he was to pursue her hand, but to no avail. The painting remained in Henry’s collection and then passed consecutively to the Lumley, Pembroke and Arundel collections and into that of the Dukes of Norfolk. 

The painting had been on loan to the National Gallery for some time when, in 1909, the Duke of Norfolk decided to sell it.  The Art Fund famously launched a campaign to prevent its purchase by Henry Clay Frick and its export to the USA.  The charity was given just one month to raise the £72,000 required, and was struggling to raise what was for the time an enormous amount when, at the eleventh hour, a telegram arrived from ‘an unknown English lady at a German watering place’ offering to make up the entire deficit of £40,000 - the equivalent of one third of her personal fortune.  The one condition was that her name was never divulged; to this day it is passed in a sealed envelope from Chairman to Chairman (The Art Fund still possesses the envelope). The painting is now one of the most important works in the collection of the National Gallery, London.

One of the most important campaigns to save a work of art ever run by The Art Fund came in 1906 with the ambitious campaign to save for the nation the stunning The Toilet of Venus (‘The Rokeby Venus’), 1648–1651, by Diego Velázquez.  The National Gallery wished to acquire the painting, but at the time it received an annual purchase grant of just £5,000 - a ninth of the £45,000 needed to secure the painting.  The Art Fund raised the full sum by public subscription in just two months; evidence suggests that the King, Edward VII, who had a penchant for nudes, stepped in to help secure the final funds.  Following this success, King Edward became The Art Fund’s first Patron, and Royal patronage continues to this day. The painting is one of the stars of the National Gallery’s collection - if it appeared on the market today, it would be worth in excess of £100 million.

Related Links:

Find out about Christina of Denmark's disappearing act at Tate Britain