Saving Van Dyck’s Self-portrait

Oh, the perils of social media – post in haste, repent at leisure. Yesterday on this blog’s Facebook page I remarked that I was:

Sending donation to @artfund #savevandyck but awaiting their response to Bryan Sewell

With a link to an article by Brian Sewell which had appeared in the London Evening Standard. Facebook turns posts immediately into tweets as can be seen below:

Not only had I misspelt “Brian”, but worse I hadn’t checked subsequent issues of the Standard for any responses. As you can see, this omission was pointed out by Sandy Nairne @Boathouseman who, much to my embarrassment, is the Director of the National Portrait Gallery. All I can offer by way of apology is to reproduce his letter to the ES (Wed 4 Dec, page 51) below:

I was glad to see that he thinks a system for matching auction bids, as Sewell suggested, might be feasible in the future. And this is the link that matters.

Save Old Flo

For an explanation as to how Henry Moore’s Draped Seated Woman, 1957-8 has come to be the subject of an Art Fund campaign, see the timeline on their website.

UPDATE 20 DECEMBER

It now appears that Tower Hamlets may not be the borough which owns 'Old Flo' but that it is actually the property of  Bromley!