Gallery seeks to raise a whopping US$60m for the ‘Portrait of Omai’

THE National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in London is setting out to raise £50 million (US$58 million) to buy the famed Joshua Reynolds Portrait of Omai (around 1776) (pictured).

Back in 2001, the Tate — a family of four art galleries in London, Liverpool and Cornwall — tried in vain to secure the work for £5,5 million US$6,4 million); a new £50 million valuation was set this year. If the purchase is successful, this price would match that of the most expensive work ever bought by a British museum, Titian’s Diana and Actaeon (1556-59). e Titian was jointly acquired by London’s NPG and the National Gallery of Scotland in 2009.

Omai is arguably the greatest portrait by one of the finest British portraitists. It depicts the young Tahitian man Mai (also known as Omai), one of the earliest Polynesian visitors to Europe, who sailed to Britain with Captain Cook in 1774 following Cook’s first voyage. Omai returned to Polynesia in 1777, accompanying Cook on his third voyage and probably died there two years later, aged around 26.

Last March, the United Kingdom arts minister deferred an export licence for Omai, initially until July 10. e deferral was then quietly extended until March 2023, which means that an undisclosed UK buyer has privately given notice to the government that it intends to try to match the £50 million price. e Art Newspaper can report that the institution going for the painting is the NPG.

Several other museums had a potential interest. e Tate had made valiant efforts to buy the portrait in the early 2000s.

Omai would have fitted into the collection of the NPG, but its efforts are now focused on fundraising for its 200th anniversary building project. Royal Museums Greenwich might also have been interested, because of the Cook connection, as would the Captain Cook Memorial Museum in Whitby, Yorkshire.

A spokesperson for the NPG said: “Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Portrait of Omai is one of the greatest British portraits and a painting of singular national, and international, cultural significance.

“e NPG is supportive of the crucial efforts being made to give UK institutions the opportunity to acquire this uniquely important painting for the nation to ensure it goes on public display once and for all, where it belongs. e second deferral period will give us the chance to explore a number of fundraising leads and gives potential supporters the opportunity to come forward to help stop this key work of British culture from leaving.”

Omai was first sold in 1796, four years after Joshua Reynolds’s death, going to the fifth Earl of Carlisle. For more than two centuries it passed down through the family to the 13th Earl.

e earl instead sold Omai at Sotheby’s in 2001. Estimated at about £7 million (US$8,1 million), it ended up fetching £10,3 million (US$12 million). e buyer was a Swiss company, Settlements SA, controlled by the Dublin collector and horsestud owner John Magnier.

In just over 20 years, the painting’s value has increased fivefold.

It is ambitious of the NPG to attempt to buy Omai, since it is in the concluding stages of a major £35,5 million (US$41 million) refurbishment of the gallery, with the capital fundraising target now reached. Closed since 2020, the building is due to reopen next year.

If the Reynolds portrait is successfully acquired, it will join another important depiction of Omai. William Parry’s Portrait of Omai, Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander (1775-76) was bought for £950 000 (US$1 million) in 2003 and is owned together by the NPG, Amgueddfa CymruMuseum Wales and the Captain Cook Memorial Museum.

e success of the Parry joint acquisition suggests that it is still possible that the NPG might link up with another museum for the Reynolds. — e Art Newspaper.