Re: The Independent Sunday
March 10th 2013
One of the most loved pictures
in all modern art is likely to disappear from public view in Britain for ever,
when Picasso's Child with a Dove heads overseas to its new private owner. The
picture, painted in 1901, was valued at around £50m and sold last year at
Christie's by the Aberconway family. Depicting a small girl cradling a bird,
the painting has become an emblem of peace, and marks the beginning of
Picasso's innovative Blue Period. It was bought in 1928 by the textile magnate,
art collector and benefactor Samuel Courtauld, who loved it so much that he
kept it in his bedroom.
Attempts failed last year to
raise the funds to keep the work in Britain, despite expert advice to Arts Council
England that Picasso was poorly represented in British collections, which were
slow to recognise the artist. The National Gallery was busy finding £50m to buy
Titian's Diana and Callisto from the Duke of Sutherland.
The painting is widely rumoured
to have been sold to Qatar, where they're opening a new museum, in which case,
it will still be available to the public, just a different public."
