THE national art collection of Scotland has acquired an early work by landscape painter John Constable that once belonged to the artist Lucien Freud.
Portrait Of Laura Moubray is described by the National Galleries Of Scotland as a "fine early work", and has been acquired by the galleries through the UK Government's Acceptance In Lieu scheme, which offsets inheritance tax bills and encourages art works to be kept in public collections rather than sold on the open market.
The tax offset by the acceptance of the Constable work is £105,000.
The scheme brings up to 10 items and collections to the Scottish collections annually.
Freud, who died in 2011, is considered one of the greatest painters of the last century. He once said: "I've always thought it was completely loopy for people to go on about portrait painters, English portrait painters, and not to have Constable among them."
The sitter's husband was Robert Moubray of Cockairny and Otterston, a deputy lieutenant of Fifeshire who lived between 1774 and 1848.
Constable, known more for his landscapes, is believed to have painted only about 100 portraits during his early career, of which about 50 survive.
The painting complements the galleries' existing holdings of the artist's work: the major landscape The Vale Of Dedham (1828) and the small sketch On The Stour (1830).
Freud is already represented in the collection of the National Galleries Of Scotland by a number of key works, which include Two Men (1988).
Michael Clarke, director of the Scottish National Gallery, said: "We are thrilled to receive this charming and intriguing picture.
"Lucian Freud had a very discerning eye and now our public will also be able to appreciate the qualities Freud found in Constable's rare and unusual portraits."
The Scottish National Gallery was one of Freud's favourite galleries.
Other English portraits in the galleries include significant works by Thomas Gainsborough, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Thomas Lawrence.
The Acceptance In Lieu scheme is a reserved matter but "executive devolution" arrangements are in place to enable Scottish ministers to deal with cases in which there is a Scottish interest.
The scheme is administered across the UK by the Arts Council England.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article