Britain blocks export of tiny £4.6m Renaissance bronze to give museums a chance
Britain has stopped a 500-year-old bronze from leaving the country.
The Seated Nymph, a small bronze valued at £4.6 million ($6.2 million), is now subject to a temporary export bar. The hold pauses permission to ship the work abroad while a buyer at home is sought.
The figure stands just under eight inches tall. It was cast more than 500 years ago by Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, the Italian court sculptor known as Antico. The UK's Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art, which advises on national treasures, recommended the pause because the work meets two tests, the second and third Waverley criteria, for outstanding beauty and for what it can teach about the history of collecting sculpture, according to Artnet News.
The history runs through royal shelves. The bronze is thought to have been commissioned in 1503 by Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua in northern Italy, a leading patron of her day. It later belonged to the Gonzaga collections, which England's King Charles I acquired around 1628. Centuries later it was sold to the Dukes of Bedford in 1861 and then rediscovered in the collection at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire, England.
The market story shows a sharp rise. The Nymph last sold in public at Sotheby's in London in 2009 for £1.4 million ($2.3 million). Its current overseas owner bought it privately from London dealer Patricia Wengraf in April.
UK galleries and museums now have a short window to act. They have until 17 December 2026 inclusive to express interest in buying the sculpture, the government said in its announcement. The decision on the application for an export licence was deferred for an initial period ending on that December date. The official notice is titled 'UK galleries urged to save rare Renaissance masterpiece'.
Any offer must match the £4.6 million valuation. If an offer is accepted, a second deferral of five months follows to raise the money.
What makes this stand out is size against story. She fits in two hands. Yet she links Mantua, Whitehall and Woburn, and her value has more than tripled since 2009. For anyone in Britain, the next three months decide whether she stays where the public can see her.
