Alice pictures export ban extended
A temporary export ban on a set of rare photographs of the little girl who inspired Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland stories has been extended until May.
The photographs of young Alice Liddell, taken by the children’s author himself, were sold to collectors from the US for around £600,000 (€981,000) at auction in June last year.
But a temporary export ban on the photographs was imposed by the Government in November after campaigners fought to keep the images in Britain.
Russell Roberts, a curator at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (NMPFT) in Bradford, said that the ban had now been extended until May by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
He added: ‘‘These were photographs that Carroll gave to Alice and her family as a token of gratitude for her inspirational character, and we decided they were of outstanding national importance.
‘‘What we are taking about is securing for the country, through national museums, some of Carroll’s most important work.’’
Mr Roberts said a consortium, including the NMPFT, the National Portrait Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum and Museum of Oxford, were now trying to raise £600,000 to re-purchase the photographs.
If successful, the collection of around a dozen albumen prints would be displayed at both the NMPFT and the National Portrait Gallery. Other museums would also be offered the photographs on a temporary loan basis.
‘‘We have got some donations so far but we still have a long way to go. We’ve got a deferral till May so that extra few months is extremely helpful,’’ added Mr Roberts.
Carroll was inspired to write what became an internationally-renowned classic children’s book after meeting Alice and her two sisters on a river expedition in 1862.
The photographs, which formed part of a private collection from Alice’s family estate, were sold along with other Lewis Carroll memorabilia at auctioneers Sotheby’s in London.
