Museums and Institutions

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.

Thieves broke into The Lalique Museum in the early hours of July 5 and stole 27 items of jewellery valued in the region of €4.5m.

Two 500,000-year-old flint handaxes discovered in Norfolk have been blocked from export in the hope a UK institution can raise the funds to keep them in the country.

English Heritage has launched an appeal to help find three portraits by artist Frederic Leighton (1839-96) once on display at Wrest Park in Bedfordshire.

A rarely seen print archive featuring work by Mod Brit art greats including Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Elisabeth Frink, Paula Rego, Ceri Richards and John Piper will soon be available freely online.

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.

Three large horse portraits by the British artist John Wootton (1682-1764) will be on display at The National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket following an allocation from Arts Council’s Acceptance in Lieu scheme.

A huge wool and silk tapestry titled The Meeting of Dante and Virgil and dated to 1546-49 will be restored with funding from The European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF) Museum Restoration Fund.

A new museum currently under construction just outside Paris has made two purchases at Hôtel Drouot this month.

A Devon museum is in discussion with a jewellery dealer for the loan of a Tudor ring discovered by a metal-detectorist.

A ‘scrapbook’ of photographs put together by Roland Haupt, a darkroom assistant in the London office of Vogue magazine, has been sold to The Bodleian Libraries by dealer Michael Hoppen Gallery.

Strawberry Hill House, the London home created by the famed historian, collector and social commentator Horace Walpole (1717-97), is fundraising to buy a picture once in his collection.

The J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has bought two 17th century Dutch still life paintings, one by Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606-84) and one by his slightly older predecessor Pieter Claesz (1597/98-1660).

Penlee House Gallery & Museum in Cornwall has purchased an important painting by Walter Langley (1852-1922) after successfully raising the £65,000 needed to acquire it from a local authority in Surrey.