Mezzotint Collection May Go to the British Museum
Martin Bailey reports in The Art Newspaper, 21 October 2009:
British Museum to Acquire Major Print Collection
LONDON — The British Museum in London hopes to make its largest acquisition of prints since 1902. It wants to buy 7,250 mezzotints from Christopher Lennox-Boyd, a specialist who has assembled a collection of 50,000 during a period of 40 years. The British Museum has examined them all, selecting mezzotints (produced with a tonal printing method) from the 17th to 19th centuries, which it lacks. The agreed price is £1,250,000, an average of £170 each. . . .
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As reported by Art Daily (6 October 2010), the sale did go through. The BM acquired 7250 prints for £1,250,000. In the words of Antony Griffiths, Keeper of the Prints and Drawings Department at the British Museum: “This is the largest acquisition for the British Museum print collection in the last hundred years, and makes available to the world a very important part of the history of British art.”