News
A National masterpiece
THE Art Newspaper has revealed that the National Portrait Gallery is attempting to raise £50 million to buy Joshua Reynolds’s Portrait of Omai (, about 1776). The painting—the subject of which was one of the first Polynesian visitors to Europe, who travelled to Britain with Capt Cook—was once owned by the 5th Earl of Carlisle. In 2001, the Earl sold it to a Swiss company, Settlements SA. At about the same time, Tate tried to purchase it for £5.5 million.
