LONDON, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Britain's Arts Minister Helen Whately on Monday placed an export bar on a painting by famous landscape artist Thomas Gainsborough in the hope that a UK gallery or museum can acquire the work.
"This piece is a superb example and I hope that a UK buyer can be found so we can find a new home for this work in our national collection," said Whately.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said the painting is at risk of leaving UK shores unless a buyer can be found in the next few months.
Gainsborough painted "Going to Market, Early Morning" in 1773 and it has been hailed as an example of the artist's finest works.
The artwork is now valued at about 10.6 million U.S. dollars.
Gainsborough (1727-1788), an English portrait and landscape painter, was born in Suffolk and trained in London. He was a founder member of the Royal Academy, later becoming a favorite painter of King George III and his family.
He is credited as a co-originator of the British landscape school of the 18th century.
DCMS said the painting depicts a group of figures on horseback travelling through an idyllic English landscape. The group is pictured passing a destitute mother with a baby. The scene is bathed in the silvery light of dawn. Gainsborough's treatment of light gives the work an atmospheric quality.
