OMAI SAVED FOR THE NATION

It’s been a long struggle, but Sir Joshua Reynold’s Portrait of Mai (Omai), it was announced today (April 25), is to stay in the country… for the time being, at least.

Portrait of Mai (Omai) Sir Joshua Reynolds c 1776, Image courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, London and Getty

The iconic portrait, of a young Polynesian ambassador (named Mai, but known as Omai in England) who travelled to England on Captain James Cook’s ship HMS Adventure in 1773-74, has been jointly acquired by the National Portrait Gallery and the Getty in Los Angeles. This after a massive fund-raising campaign by the former institution, which raised half of the £50m needed to secure the painting for the public, previously owned by a private collector.

£10.7m of the fee was donated by the National Heritage Memorial Fund, £2.5m from the Art Fund, and much of the rest from over 2,000 private donors. The £25m raised by the National Portrait Gallery was matched by the Getty, and the painting will now travel to and fro across the Atlantic. The public will first be able to see it when the NPG opens its doors again in June, after its massive refurbishment (there’s a hot ticket!) and it is likely to first travel to LA in the build-up to the 2028 Olympic Games, to be held in the Californian city.

The acquisition of the painting has been a long, drawn-out affair, with many seemingly insurmountable hurdles overcome, most recently the expiry of an export bar in March, which was thankfully extended until June. The deal went right to the wire, then… maybe there’s a movie in there somewhere.

But was it worth £50m? It has been untested at auction, after all, since it last went under the hammer for £10.7m in 2001. So it’s hardly a snip, but it’s worth pointing out that – partially due to the drawn-out wranglings – Portrait of Omai has become one of the UK’s most iconic paintings (to rank now, surely, with Gainsborough’s Blue Boy) and will draw eager crowds for decades to come, whichever side of the Atlantic it goes on display. It is, it’s also worth noting, a beautifully executed artwork, fashioned by one of the country’s most talented painters at the height of his powers.