£100 Million Of Baroque Italian Paintings Bequeathed To UK

The late Sir Denis Mahon bequeathed £100 million worth of Baroque Italian paintings to the UK. A British art historian and collector, who died in 2011, Mahon left his collection to the Art Fund, which is national fundraising charity that helps museums buy and show great art for everyone. He left instructions that the collection should be placed on display in specific locations across the country, in perpetuity. The collection of 57 works is one of the greatest private collections of 17th century Italian Baroque art. It includes masterpieces by Ludovico Carracci, Pietro de Cortona, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Domenichino, Luca Giordano, Guercino, Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini and Guido Reni. Mahon bequeathed the paintings on the condition that they must never be sold and there should never be an admission charge to see them. Twenty-five of the paintings have been donated to London’s National Gallery, 12 to the Ashmolean in Oxford, eight to Edinburgh’s Scottish National Gallery, six to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, one to Temple Newsam House in Leeds, and five to Birmingham’s Museum and Art Gallery. The Old Masters donated include Reni’s ‘The Rape of Europa’ painted from 1637 to 1639, showing the abduction of Europa by Zeus in the form of a bull as depicted in Ancient Greek mythology. It is on show at the National Gallery in London.