The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is fundraising in a bid to save an historic painting for the nation.

Museum staff are raising funds to buy a painting of the Crucifixion by the Renaissance Master Fra Angelico dating to the 1420s.

Due to its cultural and art historical importance, the painting been barred from export and is at risk of leaving the UK unless a 'domestic buyer' is found.

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The Crucifixion has been in a private British collection for more than 200 years and is valued at over £5m for the open market.

The museum has until October 29 to raise £4,481,000 to buy the painting in a private sale.

(Image: Ashmolean Museum) So far, more than £3.1m has been secured, including funding from major donors, a circle of more than 25 supporters and a significant grant from Art Fund, with several grant applications pending.

Director of the Ashmolean Dr Xa Sturgis CBE said: "This is an unrepeatable chance to save a powerfully engaging painting by one of the great painters of the Florentine Renaissance for the public.

"We are immensely grateful to all of those who have helped us make such a positive start to our campaign and sincerely hope that others will join us to secure this beautiful and moving work."

The Crucifixion is one of the earliest surviving panel paintings by Fra Angelico and the earliest version of the subject he was to return to repeatedly throughout his career.

Fra Angelico was one of the key artists of the Italian Renaissance but there are no complete works by the artist in the UK – the National Gallery and the Courtauld Gallery only holding fragments of larger altarpieces in their collections.

(Image: Ashmolean Museum) If the Ashmolean is successful in raising the funds this early Crucifixion would join a later work by the artist and assistants in the Ashmolean – a triptych of the Virgin and Child – making the Ashmolean the only museum in the country where visitors could witness Fra Angelico’s development over the course of his career.  

The Crucifixion was discovered in a private UK collection and attributed to the master in the 1990s. Fra Angelico was active from 1417 and died in 1455. 

Following the announcement of the temporary export bar, Christopher Baker, member of the Reviewing Committee on the Exports Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, said: "Fra Angelico was one of the great innovators in the evolution of early 15th-century Florentine art.

"This profoundly moving devotional work, with its delicate colour harmonies and deeply considered, expressive figures, demonstrates the enduring power of his achievement.

"It is an extraordinary rarity that assists with our understanding of a formative period in the artist’s career and in the development of Italian Renaissance painting more widely.

"Executed in tempera on a wooden panel, the painting retains its original frame and has been in Britain since the early 19th century.

"It would constitute a major addition to a UK public collection and every effort should be made if possible to acquire it."

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About the author 

Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. 

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