A time of gifts
A time of gifts Acceptance in lieu: how five recent allocations have enriched the art collections of the Ulster Museum, Belfast, National Museums NI
Late in 2019, six small Rembrandt etchings
National Gallery. This appetite could not
arrived in Belfast. Accepted in lieu of tax
have been known to the original collector of
and allocated to the Ulster Museum, they
the etchings or his executors as they had no
represent some of Rembrandt’s most famous
known connection with the north of Ireland.
subjects: Bearded man in a furred cap and Anne Stewart Senior Curator of Art, Ulster Museum, National Museums NI Anne Stewart studied Art History at the Universities of London and Oxford. She began her career at the National Gallery of Ireland and joined the Ulster Museum in 1983, where she is Senior Curator of Art. Her exhibitions include An Irishman on the Grand Tour, 1999, Irish Art from the Ulster Museum, National Gallery of Ireland, 2007 and retrospectives of Sir John Lavery and William Scott. She is currently co-curating a Willie Doherty exhibition for FMAV, Modena, Italy, and the Ulster Museum, 2020–21.
robe (1631), The Artist's Mother, seated
The Belfast Art Gallery and Museum,
at a table (1631), The Sleeping Herdsman
now the Ulster Museum, opened in 1929,
(1644), Six's Bridge (1645), The Adoration
the same year as MOMA in New York.
of the Shepherds: with the lamp (1654) and
It holds the national art collection of
The Descent from the Cross by torchlight
Northern Ireland, encompassing painting,
(1654). Whilst the decision to allocate these
sculpture, works on paper, silver, glass,
works to the Ulster Museum may seem
ceramics, furniture, costume, photographs,
unremarkable, it was nonetheless of genuine
time-based media and works made in
significance in that the etchings became the
response to the Troubles. Best-known for
first works by Rembrandt to enter a public
Irish and 20th century art, the collection
collection in Northern Ireland. That this
nonetheless ranges from the 1500s to
was a gap to be filled was demonstrated in
the present. Amongst its treasures are
2016 when the National Gallery generously
an exquisite late circular oil landscape by
lent Rembrandt’s Self Portrait at the age
J.M.W. Turner, The Dawn of Christianity (The
of 63 (Christie’s Masterpiece Tour) to the
Flight into Egypt) (1841), and an important
Ulster Museum. Over 28,500 visitors came
early Francis Bacon, Head II (1949).
to see the self-portrait in just eight weeks. Of these, almost half had never seen a
The Modern collection was begun in the
work by Rembrandt before or visited the
1920s, when the Lloyd Patterson bequest
REMBRANDT HARMENSZ. VAN RIJN (1606–1669)
Six's Bridge, 1645 Accepted in lieu of inheritance tax by HM Government and allocated to the Ulster Museum, 2019
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