Museum acquisitions

The Herschel Museum of Astronomy in Bath has launched a fundraising campaign to buy a Caroline Herschel memoir.

The Friends of the BADA has given £500 to support the Bethlem Museum of the Mind in the acquisition of a new work.

The National Trust has acquired a silver inkstand used by Viscount Castlereagh (1769-1822), the Anglo-Irish politician and statesman.

Two Italian pictures have joined the National Gallery’s collection via the government’s inheritance tax scheme.

A casket believed to have once belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots has been bought by the National Museum of Scotland with help from donors and art funds.

A Wright of Derby (1734-97) self-portrait, in private hands for 250 years, has been bought by Derby Museum and Art Gallery with the help of donations and a government tax scheme.

A work by Rebecca Solomon (1832-86) offered at Sotheby’s was bought by The Princeton University Art Museum.

A rediscovered miniature book by Charlotte Brontë has been sold at a New York book fair.

A Sitwell portrait is returning home after Scarborough Museums Trust bought it at a Newbury auction.

The funds necessary to keep a portrait of Horace Walpole on display at his former home Strawberry Hill have been raised following a public appeal.

The Strawberry Hill Trust is appealing for public donations to buy a painting by William Hogarth (1697-1784) of Horace Walpole.

The 1844 portrait William Beckford on his Deathbed by Willes Maddox (1813-53) has been purchased by Bath Preservation Trust and will go on display at Beckford’s Tower and Museum this month.