Painting sale stumped by ‘Englishness’ of cricket
Owner to appeal after government experts use cultural grounds to stop artwork leaving Britain
CRICKET conjures images of goodnatured games on bucolic village greens, but the essential Englishness of the sport is now at the heart of a less tranquil contest.
The game is at the centre of an arts dispute as government experts argue its cultural importance to Britain means that a £1million painting of cricket players should not be allowed to leave the country.
The 1763 work The Cricketers by Benjamin West was to be sold abroad, but ministers barred the sale after art advisers deemed it nationally significant as “one of the most important paintings” on cricket.
The owner of the artwork is contesting the Government’s decision, arguing that the painting’s connection to cricket is not a strong enough reason to keep it in Britain.
It is understood the fate of the 260-year-old canvas, which shows wealthy friends chatting while one leans on a cricket bat, will be decided next year, with the United States a possible destination if it is allowed to leave.
Stuart Andrew, the arts minister, initially stepped in to prevent this by imposing a temporary export bar, after an advisory committee deemed the painting “one of the most important paintings pertaining to early cricket, painted at a critical period in the development of the game”.
Artworks have been blocked from export due to their depictions of British life and history, including a 16th-century painting of English ships tackling the Spanish Armada, but it is understood that this is the first time the subject of cricket has stumped an international sale.
The Cricketers was created by American-born artist West, better known for depicting the deaths of British heroes General Wolfe and Admiral Lord Nelson, and shows five rich young men with cricket bats chatting, possibly after a match. It was commissioned by William Allen, a wealthy figure in colonial Pennsylvania who opposed the American revolution, and the men depicted are his sons and their friends during their education in the “mother country”.
It is understood the painting may be owned by a descendent of the loyalist Allen family, now based in Britain, who arranged to sell the work last year to an international buyer.
Experts on a Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport reviewing
committee, which advises on art exports said the work was an early portrayal of cricket as a “noble sport” carrying “notions of gentility”, making it an important depiction of the development “from a rustic sport” to one “taken up in earnest by aristocratic patrons”.
It argued that its subject matter made the work important to British art and
culture, and that it should therefore remain in the UK, but the owner has claimed that it has much more cultural significance for Americans.
Documents submitted to the committee to push for the sale argued that The Cricketers “is by an American artist, depicts American subjects, and was commissioned by an American for display
in Pennsylvania”. It was further argued that the men in the painting went on to play key roles in US society with one – Arthur Middleton – signing the Declaration of Independence.
However, the reviewing committee maintained that the sporting connection was significant, finding that “even if the cricket equipment was included
as props their presence was symbolic of status and British nationalism”.
It was also deemed to be important as a record of Anglo-american relations before the revolution and a temporary bar has been placed on the painting, but the sale will be pushed through next April if no alternative buyer in Britain can be found.