BRITISH BIDS TO KEEP REMBRANDT

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30711, 29 March 1965, Page 2

BRITISH BIDS TO KEEP REMBRANDT

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, March 28.

Efforts to prevent the export to the United States of one of Rembrandt’s greatest masterpieces are increasing with signs of a Parliamentary bid to keep it in Britain. The picture, a sensitive portrait of Rembrandt’s five-year-old son, Titus, was sold to the Los Angeles Norton Simon Foundation last Friday for a British record auction price of £798,000.

A Conservative member of Parliament, Mr Paul Channon, has already put down questions for the Ministers of Finance and Trade, asking them to refuse an export licence and to refer the purchase to the special reviewing committee on the export of works of art. While Mr Channon was still waiting for the answer, a Labour member, Mr Derek Page, put down a question asking the Trade Minister what action he proposed to take about the export of the Rembrandt.

The picture, said to be one of the seventeenth century master’s most important, has a history as a storm centre. Bought for £60,000 in 1915, it became part of the Cook family collection. The present head of the family, Sir Francis Cook, gave it to his seventh wife, Brenda. The trustees for two of his children by former marriages took him to Court, and he and his wife were ordered to pay the children £lOO,OO if it was ever sold.

The sale itself was one of the most dramatic in Britain. The picture was knocked down to a British gallery for £777,000. Mr Simon protested that his secret bidding

method,, agreed with the auctioneer beforehand, had been ignored. And to gasps of amazement from international dealers crowding the room, the sale was re-opened and the picture knocked down to him. He said afterwards he hoped to get an export licence.