DESPITE the Church Buildings Council’s (CBC’s) objections to the proposed sale, the Consistory Court of the diocese of Leeds has granted a college permitting the sale of two Nineteenth-century paintings that had been stored for several years in St Thomas the Apostle, Killinghall.
The paintings are Reclining Magdalene, after Pompeo Batoni, which had been donated before 1985 by a neighborhood family, and Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist, after Andrea Schiavone, which had been donated by Canon Elliston, possibly within the Nineteen Forties.
The CBC advised against the sale, and said that each paintings had a connection to the church and contained religious subject material; they reflected the continued use of the church and the dedication of the parishioners over many many years. The paintings were now in poor condition, partly due to storage conditions.
The CBC encouraged the conservation of the paintings, and their retention within the church, or, on the very least, their storage in suitable conditions. Although the paintings may not be to current taste, the CBC said, there might come a time when the parish wished to conserve and display the paintings.
The CBC would discourage the sale of things merely on the grounds that they appeared surplus to requirements at the present time.
The incumbent and churchwarden who had petitioned for the school regarded the CBC’s stance as unrealistic. They stated that the church didn’t have the cash to do anything apart from proceed to store the paintings as that they had done since their removal from the partitions of the church.
The PCC said that storage had resulted in further deterioration to the paintings, however the partitions of the church were damp, and the paintings wouldn’t be in any higher condition had they been hanging. The DAC said that, although it could normally support the CBC’s position and the presumption against the sale of church contents, on this instance the DAC’s view was that the paintings could be higher served by being sold to someone with the means and motivation to conserve and display them.
Sue MacDonaldHoly Family with Saint John the Baptist, after Andrea Schiavone
The CBC also pointed to the strong presumption against the disposal of “church treasures”. That term had been defined by the Court of Arches to mean “articles of particular (or special) historic, architectural, archaeological or artistic interest, falling inside the faculty jurisdiction”.
The Chancellor, the Worshipful Mark Hill KC, said that care should be taken “to distinguish between the disposal of church treasures, properly so described, and the disposal of church property generally”. The two paintings had been valued at £120 to £150 each. The Chancellor said that that “financial value militates against them being church treasures as such, although monetary price can never alone be determinative”.
The CBC had categorised each paintings as treasures, apparently on the premise of a reference to the church and the religious subject material. The Chancellor said, nonetheless, that, having “reviewed all the knowledge before the court”, he didn’t consider that either picture was properly categorised as an article of special historic, architectural, archaeological, or artistic interest; nor should they be classed as church treasures.
It was rare for the recommendation of the DAC and the CBC to not coincide, and the court had to think about the dissonance with great care. The Chancellor concluded that he preferred the recommendation of the DAC to that of the CBC. The DAC’s local knowledge and pastoral concern gave it “a bonus over the more distant desktop assessment carried out by the CBC under its delegated advice policy”, the Chancellor said.
The paintings had a really modest value, and their real reference to the church was tenuous. There were no local objections to their sale. They had been stored for several years, and were unlikely ever to be placed on display. They were deteriorating, and would proceed to deteriorate even when held on the partitions of the church.
There appeared to be “no reason to retain them, and each reason to get rid of them to a collector or restorer”, the Chancellor said. A school was granted for the sale of the 2 paintings.
