Colin Gleadell gives the bidding details on the Getty’s new Turner:

In London last week, the bidding boiled down to a battle between two Americans. Mobile phone clasped to his ear, New Yorker David Benrimon, better known as a dealer in Impressionist and contemporary art, was acting for a private collector, and, he revealed later, he had set a limit of £25 million on his bids. Also in the room was Scott Schaefer, the senior curator of paintings at the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, who was letting John Morton Morris, director of London gallery Hazlitt Gooden and Fox, bid for him. As the bidding slowed down, and Benrimon eked out a couple of bids over his limit, Morris replied with little hesitation until the painting was won – knocked down for £26 million, or £29.7 million with the auctioneers’ commission charge to the buyer added.

Afterwards, the saleroom chat was that, even at that price, the painting was cheap. And perhaps, compared with a great Impressionist painting, with which the Turner would undoubtedly hold its own, it was.

In the months to come some, if not all, of these works are likely to come under the scrutiny of the Government’s export reviewing committee, which can delay exports to give British museums time to buy. It may be we already have enough Turners in this country

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