Last week, British culture minister Ed Vaizey placed a temporary export ban on Edouard Manet's "Mademoiselle Claus" in the hopes that an institution or individual will purchase it and keep it in the country. It won't come cheap, naturally: the buyer will need to come up with £28.4 million ($43.9 million).
In a statement, the department for culture, media and sport says that the export ban "will provide a last chance to raise the money to keep the painting in the United Kingdom." The ban is valid through February 7, 2012, with the possibility of extending it for six months if someone expresses "serious intention" of raising the funds necessary to purchase the painting. John Singer Sargent bought the work from Manet's estate after his death, taking it to the U.K. where it has remained ever since. The painting is now part of a private collection. It has not been revealed whether the current owner has already found a foreign buyer — the most likely scenario — or has simply expressed the intention of selling it, the Art Market Monitor reports.
According to the department for culture, media, and sport, "Mademoiselle Claus" was only shown in public once in the last century (at the National Gallery in 1983 for a Manet retrospective on the centenary of his death, according to the Guardian). Manet painted the work, which depicts the violinist Fanny Claus, in preparation for his painting "The Balcony," now in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay. Inspired by Goya's "Majas on a Balcony," "The Balcony" shocked the public when it was shown at the Paris Salon of 1869. Viewers found it odd, crudely realistic, and in bad taste. (Of course, Manet's reputation has changed dramatically since then: During the Musée d'Orsay's recent Manet show, curator Stéphane Guéguan told ARTINFO France that the artist's style was a kind of "exploded Impressionism.")
In its recommendation to the culture minister, the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest referred to the portrait's "outstanding aesthetic importance... and outstanding significance" for French painting. Although the painting is unfinished, committee member Lowell Libson said in a statement that its incomplete state "adds to its interest, revealing the artist's creative process, while emphasizing the haunting beauty of the portrait."
The pricetag of £28.4 million ($43.9 million) is higher than Manet's current auction record, which was set at Sotheby's London in June 2010 when a rare self-portrait by the artist fetched £22.4 million ($33.2 million), after having been estimated between £20-£30 million.