£300k painting works lost by art collection

Missing: Philip Reinagle’s 1797 oil painting entitled Harrier Killing a Bittern going to be £20. A comparable work by her sold this month for £150,000.

“It is not just a question of money, it’s a question of heritage and what’s worse, a breaking of public trust.

“These are works that should be available for the nation.”

The collection ranges from pastoral landscapes by John Constable to a portrait of the Queen by Damien Hirst, which have not been lost.

But Monmouth Tory MP David Davies last month called some recent additions “worthless tat which could be knocked up in 10 minutes by a child with a finger painting set”.

TaxPayers’ Alliance chief executive John O’Connell said: “No one is proposing a wholesale sell-off of art owned by the government but public bodies and local authorities should make an effort to display more of their art for people to enjoy.”

The DCMS said: “Analysis of the records of missing works indicates most losses were before the 1990s.

“A large proportion of these were reported missing in the late 1980s as a result of improvements in record keeping. The computerisation of records and employment of museum registrars has led to radical improvement in inventory control and resultant reduction in missing works.

“Missing items remain recorded on our collections management database and, using resources such as the Art Loss Register and auction house alerts, we endeavour to recover works wherever possible.”