Scottish galleries' #1.8m appeal to keep Three Graces in Britain

It follows a three-month extension by the National Heritage Secretary,

Mr Stephen Dorrell, before granting an export licence for the statue

which has been bought for #7.6m by the Getty Museum in California.

The National Galleries and the Victoria and Albert Museum have joined

forces for a joint rescue package which so far has raised #5.8m, still

#1.8m short of the total.

Kwik-Fit's chairman, Mr Tom Farmer, has agreed to provide #12,000 for

the campaign aimed at companies and individuals.

Mr Timothy Clifford, director of the National Galleries, said: ''It is

crucial that this supreme sculpture remains in Britain and this will be

a vigorous campaign to raise the necessary funds.''

Mr Dorrell said his adivsers had graded the work of being of

exceptional importance for which every effort should be made to keep it

in the United Kingdom. But he warned that the export licence would not

be put off any longer than three months.

The Three Graces was commissioned by the sixth Duke of Bedford in

1815, and remained at Woburn Abbey until 1985 when the Marquess of

Tavistock offered it to the nation in lieu of inheritance tax. These

talks broke down, and it was sold to a Cayman Islands company who sold

it to the Getty Museum, dependent on an export licence.

If the campaign is successful, the sculpture will be shown alternately

at the V and A in London and the National Gallery of Scotland in

Edinburgh.

The Getty Museum later launched a bitter attack on the Government,

warning that the decision to defer the grant of an export licence could

damage London's standing as an international art market.

Mr Walsh said: ''Evidently the faith we have had in the fairness of

the British export licence system has been misplaced.''

He said the Government had refused to accept the statue from the

Marquis of Tavistock in lieu of tax back in 1983 when its effective cost

would have been just #1.2m, and added: ''No British museum has made an

offer for the statue over the intervening years.

''On the two occasions that we have endeavoured to purchase the

statue, our efforts have been blatantly frustrated by manipulations of

the export licence system, this time with the launch of a public appeal

for funds announced after the deferral period had expired,'' Mr Walsh

said.

''We know that our disappointment will be shared by many museum

colleagues internationally.''