UK Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has barred several rare artworks and a photograph album from Julia Margaret Cameron from export, following recommendations by the Arts Council of England.
 Cameron's portrait of Julia Prinsep Jackson, mother of author Virginia Woolf |
The collection of photographs is known as the Signor album and needs to raise £121,250 ($188,241) by July 8 in order to remain in the UK. The decision to bar the item from export comes on the grounds that it is of "outstanding significance" to the study of 19th century photography and that of Julia Margaret Cameron.
Cameron was one of the most important British photographers of her era, though this is the earliest of eight albums compiled in the period before she took up photography herself. It is thought to have been compiled as a gift for her friend and fellow artist George Frederic Watts.
The album is comprised of 35 different works by various photographers, anticipating the images to would later make in her own career. Mixing the famous with the familiar, it is an incredibly important celebration of early photography.
Also temporarily barred from export as four paintings by Niccolo di Pietro Gerini (1340-1414)), which are the only works by the artist known to have survived. They will need to raise a combined £1.1m ($1.7m) if they are to remain in England.
There is also a Baroque games board crafter from Baltic amber, ebony, silver and woof, which has been attributed to Georg Schreiber, the first artist known to work with amber.
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