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Private Treaty Sales

About the sales

The purchaser must be a body listed in Schedule 3 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984 – this includes most public museums, galleries and archives in the UK. These sales offer prices which are beneficial to both the public purchaser and private vendor. They are known as Private Treaty Sales.

For example: when an item that has been granted conditional exemption from Inheritance Tax (which would have been payable at 40 per cent) is sold to a Schedule 3 body, the purchaser will usually only pay about 70 per cent of the agreed open market value. So an item valued at £100,000 can be acquired for £70,000. 

This is possible under an arrangement called the ‘douceur’, where the fiscal benefit of the exemption is shared between the vendor (usually 25 per cent) and the purchaser (usually 75 per cent). So the vendor typically obtains a sweetener of 25 per cent and the purchase price is reduced by 75 per cent of the tax that would otherwise have been payable.

Read our detailed guidance below to find out more about how sales work (including financial examples) and which organisations can purchase items. Sign up to receive an alert when a new item is listed for sale here.

Items for sale

HM Revenue and Customs requests that owners of items granted exemption give the Arts Council three months’ notice of an intention to sell the item(s). Please note that the price given is intended as a rough guide only, and does not constitute an offer to sell at this price. The practice of the auction houses is usually to pitch this at their high auction estimate.

You can sign up here to receive an alert when a new notification is listed.

  1. The following woodcut is to be sold, Guide Price: US $240,000 after the 14th of August 2024. 


    South German School, 1450-1465 

    Christ on the Mount of Olives, showing Christ praying in the foreground by some rocks, behind him the three disciples asleep, in the background a wicket fence and a lychgate through which Judas appears, followed by soldiers armed with spears; in the upper left an angel and a chalice with the instruments of the Passion, and in the sky, stars and a line of clouds; three scrolls weaving over the composition read: Dr si possible e tnsferat ame calix iste; Constans esto Ihesu fili dei; Quem osculates fuero ipse est tenete eu (Judas’ instruction to followers); and along the bottom of the print : Factus est sudor ei sicud gucce sanguinis decurretis i terram .


     

    It is partly coloured in green, pale ochre and a darker gold-yellow for the haloes. The sheet has exceptional margins, and a possible bulls head watermark
     

    Size of print 230mm x 174mm; 9” x 6 ¾” / Size of sheet 291mm x 211mm; 11 ½” x 8 ¼” 


     

    Provenance

    Otto II, Freiherr von Nostitz 1606 – 1664), his ownership inscription inside the Gutenberg Bible on vellum.


     

    Friedrich, Graf von Nostitz-Rieneck (1762 – 1819), bookplate in the bible “Ex bibliotheca Maioritus Famillae Nostizianae” 1774.


     

    Alexander Horn, antiquarian bookseller, purchased the Gutenberg Bible from the Nostitz Library, Prague in 1813; in May of that year he announced to the 2nd Earl Spencer (1758 – 1834) that the book was in the hands of Kaspar Maria, Graf Sternberg (1761 – 1838) and in August he wrote again to say that book was being sent to Nicol (see below).


     

    With G & W. Nicol, Pall Mall, London booksellers, from c.1815. George Nicol (1740 – 1828) pre-eminent bookseller of his day, retired in 1825 (leaving his son William to carry on in the firm). Nicol’s books, including the Nostitz Bible (lot 378) were sold at auction by Robert Harding Evans on 18th July, 1825. These dotted prints were The Calvary (lot 806, now in the British Museum) and two impressions of Christ on the Mount of Olives (lot 808,809). Two subjects were bought by Sir John Soane (1753 – 1837); the second copy of the Mount of Olives was acquired (possibly at the sale, or soon after) by the 2nd Earl Spencer. It is now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester.
     

    Soane either ceded or sold the two dotted prints to William Young Ottley (1771-1836), and they appeared in the Ottley sale, (Leigh, Sotheby, London, 20th May, 1837), The Calvary,(lot 1895) going to Messrs Smith (print dealers) who sold it to the British Museum in 1845, and the Mount of Olives (lot 1893 )going to Hodgson & Graves, who sold it to Thomas Barwick Lloyd Baker in 1839. It has remained in the family’s ownership since that time.


     

    References

    J.D. Passavant, Le Peintre-Graveur, I, p.88.

    W.Y. Ottley, An Inquiry concerning the Invention of Printing, 1863, p.186 and pl. VI.

    T.O. Weigel and A. Zestermann, Die Anfange der Druckerkunst Leipzig, 1866, vol.II, p.227 no.327.

    Campbell Dodgson, Catalogue of Early German and Flemish Woodcuts in the British Museum, 1903, I, p.177.

    Campbell Dodgson, Woodcuts of the Fifteenth Century in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, 1915, p.16 no. VII and pl. VII

    F.M.Haberditzl, Die Einblattendrucke des 15 Jahrhunderts in der Hofbibliothek zu Wien, Vienna, 1920, II, Die Schrotschnitte bearbieitet von Alfred Six, XIV, no.58.

    W.L.Schreiber, Handbuch des Holz-und Metalschnitte des 15 Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, 1928, V, no.2241. 


     

    Literature for Comparative Material

    Isa Fleischmann, Metallschnitt und Teigdruck, Mainz, 1998, Abb.1, 2a, 7, 26 ,27, 49

    Peter Parshall & Rainer Schoch, Origins of European Printmaking, Exh.Cat. NGA,Washington, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, 2005-2006, cat nos. 10, 48, 67, 83, 97 

    Michael Roth in Late Gothic, Exh.Cat. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 2021, cat.nos. 44, 45, 58

       Guide Price: US $240,000

Christ Mount of Olives
  1. The following archive is to be sold.  

    Portraits, documents, papers, silver and objects accumulated by the Allen, Hammond, De Lancey family. An inventory of the material included in the archive with images can be found here.

    Guide Price: US$1,300,000

  1. The following collection of 16 manuscripts from Longleat House is to be sold privately no sooner than 3rd October 2024. A list with further details, provenance information and images is available here.
  1. The following objects are to be sold in Christie’s The Collector online auction which will be running from 15th – 29th October 2024.


     

    Four parcel-gilt and pale-green painted open armchairs by Thomas Chippendale

    the cartouche-shaped padded backs, arms and bowed seats upholstered in close nailed green machined silk damask, the frames carved with foliage, the seat-rails with conforming leaves upon ring-turned fluted tapering legs headed by pinched collars and stiff-leaves (redecorated)

    Literature: Gilbert, vol. II, fig 392.

    Guide Price: £200,000


     

    A pair of blue-painted and parcel-gilt window seats by Thomas Chippendale

    the serpentine seats on fluted legs, upholstered in green silk, 52½in. wide; 27in. high

    Literature: Gilbert, vol. II, fig 392.

    Guide Price: £100,000


     

    A George III green-painted and parcel-gilt settee by Thomas Chippendale

    on nine leaf-carved and fluted legs, 82in. wide

    Literature: Gilbert, vol. II, fig 392.

    Guide Price: £20,000


     

    Provenance: Edwin Lascelles (1713-1795), later 1st Baron Harewood and thence by descent.

Chippendale Armchair
Chippendale settee
Chippendale Window Seat

Last updated: 18th July 2024

Contact us

For further details on Private Treaty Sales or any of the items listed for sale, contact:

AIL.Panel@artscouncil.org.uk

Museums and Cultural Property

Arts Council England, 

21 Stephen Street, 

London, W1T 1LN

Read the guidance

Read the guidance

Read our detailed guidance to find out more about how such sales work (including financial examples) and which organisations can purchase items. Sign up to receive an alert when a new item is listed for sale here.