I don’t particularly like or rate these actual paintings – the experts quoted below are over egging it a lot, to say the least either in general art criticism or popularity terms. They certainly do not equate in any way to the Mona Lisa.

Hear hear. Surely Constable’s Haywain, the Tate’s Turners etc are for more important/relevant.

Well apart from anything else, the paintings are a good investment. Something I doubt preserving an old RAF airfield will ever be.

The paintings aren’t ‘on the open market’ and once bought by Britain in the form of the NG and NGS, presumably there’d be a few words if they tried to sell them on, quickly or later.

They’ve been an investment for the Duke but will not be for the galleries who will buy them. They will have consitutions which prevent sale – if they close the collections are given free to other National collections. There was a huge fuss recently when Bury Council sold a Lowry from its museum. They were expelled from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and, as a result, were not allowed to apply for some grants.

Translating the BBC’s report, it seems that the Duke’s decided to dangle a price tag with a deadline out of the blue, for paintings currently on public show since 1945. If the gallery cough up, they get the option of getting shafted again – sorry another chance to buy the second painting which they are also already showing – and, bonus, to keep showing the rest of the collection. And the Duke clears a cool 100 mil without even any ‘moving the paintings cost’.

A bit simplistic. Unlikely to have landed it “out of the blue”. He’s probably been in talks for a few months and agreed a short deadline to get attentionf or the fundraising campaign. Nothing creates a crisis like a short deadline. But the deadline for the next one is four years. Why? I suspect donors might drop a large sum from a crisis fund and then agree that they can give a smaller sum every year for four years to secure the next one, from revenue.
I think he’s got a good grip of how people fund “saving art for the nation” – to use that horrid phrase.

Now, on the other hand can he sell them ‘on the open market’? No. If there was an attempt to sell them overseas, then:

Yes, he can sell it on the open market. The way it works is all 50-year-old art needs a licence to be allowed overseas – even on loan. If an overseas buyer wins an auction for these and they are deemed important, then the liecence to export is deferred. That allows for it to be saved for the nation. If nobody comes up with the money then it can be assumed “the nation” didn’t really want it and it goes overseas. See this explanation from the BBC

However, in this case, if the paintings are really worth £300m, then by the time there is a post auction intervention the galleries would have to raise a lot more money. The Duke’s gift for the nation is the difference between what he is asking and what they’d go for at auction. (Mind you, quite easy to be generous when you still get £100m!)

Well donate them to the nation, then.

Yes – I’m with you on that. Strike me he is in the classic upper-class position: asset-rich and cash poor and wants a bit more disposable to indulge his interests.

My views? The whole thing makes me very uncomfortable. First, this happened recently with the Duke of Northumberland’s Madonna painting. If it works, then I’d lay good money that another Duke will cash in. Where is the money going to keep coming from?

Also the idea that it is possible to find that much money for two paintings when so many other museums (good ones – designated and/or accredited) struggle for a few thousands. There is a huge inequality in funding. Getting money for art is comparatively easy compared even to Shakespeare or Wordsworth manuscripts or books – for which objects there are no organisations similar to the Art Fund.

And then obviously aircraft are seen as modern, industrial, dirty – hey, lets just be very grateful for those who do put money towards the things we’re interested in.

Allan