UK Government Blocks Export of £71m Rembrandt Portrait
The UK government has placed an export bar on Rembrandt's Portrait of Catrina Hooghsaet (1657), valued at £71 million — a sum the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) described as the highest ever attached to a work granted national treasure status The Art Newspaper.
An export bar is a temporary ban that prevents a significant artwork from being taken out of the country, giving British institutions a window to raise the funds to buy it. The DCMS press release, titled "Minister acts to help save Rembrandt masterpiece from leaving the UK," confirmed the bar on 27 August 2026 gov.uk.
The painting depicts Catrina Hooghsaet, a wealthy member of Amsterdam's Mennonite community who lived apart from her husband. Her pet parrot, which she included in her will, appears in the composition The Art Newspaper.
The portrait has a well-travelled history for a work that has stayed in one country. It has been in the UK since the mid-18th century and hung at Penrhyn Castle in north Wales from 1860. Sotheby's sold it in 2015 for £35 million to an overseas buyer, who withdrew the export licence application and instead loaned the painting to the National Museum Wales in Cardiff for three years from 2016 The Art Newspaper. Christie's then handled the painting's most recent sale — a private sale, meaning a transaction arranged directly between buyer and seller rather than through a public auction — completed last year The Art Newspaper.
The current export bar runs until 26 December 2026. After that, the owners have 15 business days to consider any offers at the recommended price. If a serious intention to buy is declared, a second deferral period of nine months follows, giving the prospective buyer time to assemble the full amount The Art Newspaper.
This is not the first time a Rembrandt has tested the UK's export control system. In 2013, the government delayed the export of a small Rembrandt self-portrait, giving galleries until October of that year to match the price paid by a US museum The Guardian. The 2015 sale of the Hooghsaet portrait itself prompted an earlier export bar attempt, reported by the BBC at the time BBC News.
Whether a UK institution can raise £71 million in the coming months will determine whether the painting stays or goes. The clock is already running.
