The government has placed a temporary export bar on Stanley Spencer’s 1915 painting The Resurrection of the Good and the Bad, delaying its permanent departure from the UK while a domestic buyer is given time to try to acquire it. In the government statement published on gov.uk, ministers said the aim is to keep the work in the country and, if possible, move it into public ownership. The case concerns a work by one of Britain’s most studied twentieth-century painters. For policy readers, the decision is also a clear example of how the export control system is used: not to confiscate an object, but to pause an export licence so that a museum or gallery has a fair chance to match the price.
In plain terms, an export bar is a time-limited hold on a permanent export licence application. Ownership does not automatically change hands, and the state does not take the object. Instead, the delay creates a window in which an approved UK purchaser can come forward with a serious offer. According to the government notice, the recommendation came from the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, the independent body serviced by Arts Council England. Its role is to advise ministers on whether an object proposed for export is of national importance under the Waverley system.
The painting at the centre of the case is significant because it sits at an early point in Spencer’s development. The government statement says The Resurrection of the Good and the Bad was painted in 1915, before Spencer began his First World War service, and shows his first treatment of a subject that later became one of the defining themes of his work. That matters because Spencer’s Resurrection paintings occupy a central place in British modern art. If this work entered a UK public collection, the government says it would become the earliest publicly held example of his Resurrection series, giving scholars and the public a stronger account of how that strand of his painting began.
The work is a diptych, with the composition divided across two panels. The figures on the left represent the Good rising on the Day of Judgement, while those on the right represent the Bad. The government’s object record describes it as an oil-on-canvas work, each panel measuring 635 by 787 mm. The historical timing adds to its weight. Painted just before Spencer’s wartime service, the picture offers a view of his religious imagination and artistic thinking at the moment war was beginning to shape his life, but before direct combat experience had altered his outlook.
The committee’s advice turned on the third Waverley criterion. In practice, that test is used where an object is judged to be of outstanding significance for study. According to the government statement, the committee concluded that this painting meets that threshold because of its importance to the study of Stanley Spencer and, more specifically, his treatment of the Resurrection theme. Mark Hallett, a member of the reviewing committee, said the picture represents Spencer’s first serious engagement with a subject that later became central to his art and philosophy. That assessment explains why the case is being framed less as a market issue than as a research and public-access issue: the question is whether a formative work should remain available to UK collections and scholarship.
The timetable is precise. The government has deferred the export licence decision for an initial period ending on 10 December 2026, inclusive, during which expressions of interest can be made by an appropriate purchaser. If an offer is made at the recommended price of £450,000, the owner then has 15 business days to consider it. If an option agreement is signed, a second deferral period begins and runs for four months. That structure gives institutions time not only to declare interest but also to complete the slower parts of an acquisition, including internal approvals, fundraising, trustee sign-off and, where needed, grant applications.
For museums and galleries, the practical effect is immediate. A relatively modest acquisition by national standards can still be difficult to deliver within a short timetable, particularly for institutions outside London or those already working within fixed annual budgets. The export bar therefore creates a narrow but meaningful chance to keep the work on public display in the UK. More broadly, the case shows how the cultural export regime is intended to work when a privately owned object is judged to carry particular national research value. The provenance published by the government traces ownership from James Wood’s purchase from the artist in 1915 through later private collections to the current owner in 2026. Whether a UK institution now steps in will decide if the painting remains accessible to domestic audiences or leaves the country once the deferral periods end.