The purchase of a rare artwork from the Renaissance by the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford for £4.5million has been described as a “legacy” by the curator.
The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John the Evangelist and the Magdalen, a 600-year-old painting by Dominican monk Fra Angelico, will go on free display to the public for the first time in its history at the museum.
The institution was able to purchase the painting, which had been held in a private British collection for more than 200 years, thanks to support from patrons, grants, and a public appeal.
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Members of the press were invited to a launch event for the painting at the Beaumont Street museum on Thursday morning.
Dr Xa Sturgis CBE, director of the Ashmolean, said: “It’s a very exciting day. It’s not easy at this moment of financial uncertainty in the arts, so we thought long and hard before we decided to try and raise the money.”
The director was persuaded to see the painting by the enthusiasm of the museum’s Western art curator.
He said: “After she said we should we go for it we both went and had a look, and I was convinced, partly because it’s never going to happen again – Fra Angelicos in private collections are vanishingly rare, and this is really the last one the museum will be able to buy.”
Valued at more than £5million on the open market, the painting had been sold from the private collection of the Marquess of Northampton to an overseas buyer but was blocked by a temporary export bar that gave the University of Oxford time to raise the funds.
We are delighted to announce that we have been successful in our campaign to save an early Crucifixion by Fra Angelico for the public. pic.twitter.com/x7Kn7O72xX
— Ashmolean Museum (@AshmoleanMuseum) November 7, 2024
There are just four paintings by the Florentine painter held in the UK, one in the National Gallery, one in the Courtauld Gallery, and now two in the Ashmolean.
“For me, it’s less about where it is than that it’s for the public,” said Dr Sturgis.
“We don’t know where it was going, but what we do know is by us acquiring it, it makes it accessible to a wider public, and that’s what’s exciting for me.”
The wood panel piece, executed in tempura and featuring the luminous colours and delicate figures which characterise Fra Angelico’s work, is a major addition to a UK public collection for both its aesthetic and academic value.
Curator Dr Jennifer Sliwka said: “There so much more research to be done. This could be a very early work, and now it’s available to the public we can study it and have these discussions.
“So few people have seen it for 200 years. It hasn’t been in a museum, but it’s in an amazing condition.”
Fra Angelico was active from 1417 until his death in 1455 and completed his best-known devotional frescoes in the Dominican convent of San Marco in Florence, noted for their emotional and religious intensity.
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Friar Timothy Radcliffe attended the unveiling of the work at the museum, a Dominican Priest of the same Order of Preachers as the artist.
He said: “I love that at the top of the crucifix, there is the small bush, a sign that the dead tree of the cross will flower and on Easter life will triumph over death and love over hatred.
“This is a sign of hope which our world torn by war needs, especially in the land where Jesus died.”
Some academics date The Crucifixion as early as 1419, and the museum’s other piece by the artist, a triptych of the Virgin and Child, is from the end of his career.
Dr Swilka said: “I can’t wait to hang it. It suits the collection so well as we already have a number of very early pictures both by Florentine and Sienese artists which this artist was either inspired by or went on to influence, so it really sets him perfectly in his context.”
She added: “For me, the most exciting thing is that when we’re all dust, this object will still be here delighting members of the public.
"It makes me quite emotional – it’s a legacy.”
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