News – 30 Jul 2018
220 Artworks Go Missing from UK’s Houses of Parliament
According to authorities, a significant portion of the parliamentary art collection has either been mislaid or stolen
Image: William John MacLeod, Houses of Parliament, Burning of the Debating Chamber from Star Chamber Court, 1941. Courtesy: © the artist’s estate and Parliamentary Art Collection
William John MacLeod, Houses of Parliament, Burning of the Debating Chamber from Star Chamber Court, 1941. Courtesy: © the artist’s estate and Parliamentary Art Collection
The whereabouts of a vast number of paintings, etchings and prints belonging to the official collection of the UK’s Houses of Parliament, is unknown. According to The Times, a Freedom of Information request revealed that of the 9,000 works of art in the parliamentary collection, 224 are recorded as ‘missing’ in the official database.
Some of the missing works from the collection – which started to take form in 1841 and is jointly owned by the House of Commons and the House of Lords – include a 1941 wartime oil painting by William John MacLeod, Burning of the Debating Chamber from Star Chamber Court, an 1801 portrait of William Pitt the Younger by Robert Dighton and a sketch by the 20th-century English landscape artist John Stanton Ward.
The collection, which also includes hundreds of statues, tapestries and mosaics, is said to be worth over GB£10 million. Eighty percent is showcased throughout the Westminster buildings and the other 20 percent is reportedly kept in storage. Whether the missing artworks have been mislaid or stolen is unclear; according to the Freedom of Information response, the unreliable ‘missing’ tag dates back to the 1980s.
Officials are hoping that the multi-billion-pound restoration project that the Palace of Westminster is currently undergoing in order to preserve the building will help them locate the lost works. ‘The restoration and renewal programme is an important opportunity for the Parliamentary art collection to be reviewed in detail so that historic cataloguing errors can be resolved and good documentation practice going forward can be ensured,’ a statement from the Houses of Parliament added.
新闻- 30 JUL 2018艺术品220失踪从英国国会大厦2分钟，据有关部门，议会的一个很大的部分艺术收藏已经被误放或被盗。图片：William John MacLeod，国会大厦，燃烧辩论室从星际法院，1941。礼貌：“艺术家的庄园和议会艺术收藏 William John MacLeod，国会大厦，燃烧辩论室从星际法院，1941礼貌：”艺术家的庄园和议会艺术收藏英国国会大厦的官方藏品中，大量的绘画、蚀刻和版画的下落不明。根据《时代》杂志，一个信息自由请求显示，在议会收藏的9000件艺术品中，有224份被记录为官方数据库中的“缺失”。收藏的一些失踪作品，从1841开始，由下议院和上议院共同拥有，其中包括William John MacLeod的1941战时油画，从《星际法庭》中燃烧辩论室，1801幅WIL画像。利亚姆皮特年轻的Robert Dighton和素描由二十世纪英国风景画家John Stanton Ward。该藏品还包括数百尊雕像、挂毯和马赛克，据说价值超过1000万英镑。百分之八十个展品遍布Westminster的建筑，另外20%个据说存放在仓库里。遗失的艺术品是否被误放或被盗尚不清楚；根据信息自由的回应，不可靠的“遗漏”标签可追溯到20世纪80年代。官员们希望Westminster宫殿目前正在进行的几十亿英镑的修复工程。为了保护这座建筑，他们将找到丢失的作品。国会大厦的一份声明补充说，“修复和更新方案是一个重要的机会，可以对议会艺术收藏进行详细的审查，以使历史编目错误能够得到解决，并确保良好的文件实践向前发展。”英国国会大厦英国议会艺术收藏伦敦
