Ashmolean Museum raises £4.48m to keep rare Fra Angelico work in UK

The museum’s director said the piece was ‘the earliest surviving painting by the artist of a subject he was to return to again and again’. Photograph: 2023 Christie’s Images Ltd/PA

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has raised £4.48m to prevent a rare Italian Renaissance painting from leaving the country after two centuries.

Fra Angelico’s The Crucifixion was going to be sold to an overseas buyer last year, but due to the work’s value and importance to the UK, the culture secretary granted a deferral of nine months in January to keep the painting in the UK, giving the Oxford University institute time to raise the funds needed to acquire it.