LONDON, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- Arts Minister John Glen Friday placed a temporary export bar on a famous masterpiece, Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi by Francesco Guardi, leaving Britain.
The extraordinary painting is at risk of leaving Britain for the first time unless a buyer can be found to match the asking price of 36.3 million U.S. dollars, said the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The export ban is aimed at providing a last opportunity to keep the work in Britain.
With its masterful coloring and dynamic composition in which a series of gondolas bisect the Grand Canal, the Rialto Bridge showcases Guardi's atmospheric style and the elegant depiction of light that would come to dominate his later works.
A spokeswoman for the department said: "Arguably Guardi's masterpiece, the painting is considered to be one of the ultimate expressions of Venetian vedute or view painting. Alongside Canaletto and his nephew Bellotto, Guardi was one of the great Venetian view painters of the 18th century."
The painting is believed to have been commissioned in 1768 by the relatively unknown grand tourist, Chaloner Arcedeckne, making it of great importance to the study of the British relationship with Venice and Grand Tour commissions.
Minister Glen said: "I very much hope that it can be kept in the UK, where it can be appreciated and admired by future generations for many years to come."
The decision to defer the export license follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, administered by the Arts Council.
Its member Aidan Weston-Lewis said: "Commissioned by a British visitor to Venice in the late 1760s, it has remained in the UK ever since and has frequently been on public display. Its departure from these shores would be a regrettable loss."
