The National Gallery in London looks set to buy a portrait by Jacopo Pontormo for just over £30m, after the UK government privately agreed to offer an unprecedented £19m grant to cover tax. On the eve of the 22 October deadline for the export licence deferral, the gallery succeeded in raising the full sum and was able to formally make a matching offer.
Pontormo’s Portrait of a Young Man in a Red Cap (1530) depicts Carlo Neroni, a Florentine aristocrat. It is one of only 15 surviving portraits by Pontormo, and was believed to have been lost in the 18th century until it resurfaced in a private collection in 2008.
Last year, the work was sold by the seventh Earl of Caledon to an anonymous foreign buyer for £30.6m. The Art Newspaper understands that the new owner is Tomilson (Tom) Hill, the New York-based hedge-fund banker at the Blackstone Group, although his spokeswoman declined to comment.
Exceptional grant In an unusual situation, the foreign buyer paid for the painting before an export licence application was made. This meant that a UK public collection was unable to take advantage of the tax concessions available on a private treaty sale with the original seller. The concessions on the work would have been very considerable, so the painting could have been bought by a UK public collection for just under £12m.
After prolonged discussions, the Treasury agreed to make an exceptional grant to cover the loss of the tax concessions, which amounted to nearly £19m. This meant that the gallery had to find just under £12m, and both the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Art Fund are believed to have offered grants.
A spokeswoman for the gallery says that it is “delighted” with the special government grant. She is hopeful that the work will now be acquired, since a matching offer has just been made. This would create the finest group of Florentine High Renaissance paintings outside Florence.