Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.US private equity executive Steve Schwarzman is shaking the London art market by paying record prices to acquire paintings by Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, the leading 18th century society portrait artists.Schwarzman, who was given an honorary knighthood last year by the UK government, is restoring Conholt Park, a 17th century 2,500-acre estate in Wiltshire that he bought for \u00a380mn in 2022. As he makes plans to furnish the house, he is rapidly building a collection of masterpieces by making private offers to owners through dealers.He recently acquired Reynolds\u2019 \u201cPortrait of Lady Worsley\u201d from the family of David Lascelles, Earl of Harewood, for about \u00a325mn. The portrait, which has been at Harewood House in West Yorkshire since the 18th century, shows a society heiress who was involved in a notorious court case after eloping with her lover.Schwarzman, co-founder of private equity group Blackstone, has also bought Gainsborough\u2019s portrait \u201cLady Bate-Dudley\u201d, a 1787 painting which has been on long-term loan to London\u2019s Tate Gallery. It was withdrawn from the Tate collection last year after the owner sold it privately through Simon Dickinson, a London gallery.The billionaire declined to comment this week but people close to the transactions confirmed that he was the buyer of both works. The Lascelles family decided to sell the Reynolds\u2019 portrait to help cover the upkeep of Harewood House after receiving an anonymous offer through Christie\u2019s private sales department.The \u00a325mn price is a record for Reynolds, apart from the \u00a350mn paid by the National Portrait Gallery and the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles two years ago for the exceptional \u201cPortrait of Omai\u201d, a Polynesian islander. The sale price of the Gainsborough is not known, but it is thought to be well in excess of the artist\u2019s auction record of \u00a38.2mn in 2019.Representatives of Schwarzman have made approaches to other owners of rare 18th century paintings, according to people with knowledge of the London market. Sales have been made easier by the fact that he is not applying for export licences for the works, so there is no risk of any deal being blocked by the UK government.London art advisers said there had been rumours for months of an anonymous buyer bidding for works at high prices. The market in 18th century paintings is thin because few tend to be offered for sale, and it often takes a buyer willing to offer a knockout price to families that have held them for decades.Schwarzman also owns Miramar, a Gilded Age mansion in Newport, Rhode Island that he has restored and filled with art. He said last year that it would become a private art museum on the death of him and his wife Christine. His honorary knighthood was partly in recognition of his philanthropy in the UK, including a \u00a3185mn gift to Oxford university.Reynolds\u2019 portrait of Seymour Fleming, who became Lady Worsley by marriage in 1775, is an iconic painting of the stepdaughter of the first Lord Harewood. Her husband Sir Richard Worsley brought a case of criminal adultery against the military officer with whom she had an affair, provoking a scandal that was dramatised by the BBC in 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.US private equity executive Steve Schwarzman is shaking the London art market by paying record prices to acquire paintings by Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":179388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-179387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179389,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179387\/revisions\/179389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}