Botticelli Painting Held in the UK Goes on Show in Oxford

A painting by Sandro Botticelli, the Italian artist who worked in Florence in the 1400s, is now on display in Oxford. The Virgin and Child Enthroned, which dates from the 1470s, has gone on show at the Ashmolean Museum, the university museum in the English city, according to The Art Newspaper.

The route to Oxford has been a winding one. In May 2025, the UK government placed an export bar on the work, valuing it at £10.2 million. An export bar is a government block that stops a valuable object leaving the country without permission.

The painting had changed hands only months earlier. It sold at Sotheby's in London in late 2024 for £9.7 million, including fees. Fees here means the extra charges the buyer pays on top of the winning bid.

The buyer was the Klesch Collection. In May, it announced plans to lend the painting to the Ashmolean for three years. A loan means the owner keeps the work but agrees to let another institution show it for a set period.

The Ashmolean has shown this painting before. It was on display there in 1934 and 1935, when it was attributed to Botticelli's workshop, the studio of assistants and apprentices who worked under an artist. The label has since changed, and the work now carries Botticelli's name.

For visitors in Oxford, the painting is now on view in the museum's galleries. The loan runs for three years.