Getty’s auction find now in a bind

For the second time this year, the J. Paul Getty Museum is engaged in a tug of war with a British art institution over a precious object.

Last week, the nonprofit National Art Collections Fund offered nearly $900,000 toward a fundraising campaign to keep the medieval Macclesfield Psalter in Britain.

The rare illustrated manuscript of psalms -- discovered earlier this year in the library at Shirburn Castle in Oxfordshire -- was sold at a Sotheby’s auction this summer. Outbidding the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the Getty bought the manuscript for about $2.8 million.

“It’s an absolutely glorious object,” said David Barrie, director of the London-based National Art Collections Fund, “probably the most important British discovery of an illuminated medieval manuscript in memory.”

The British government has banned the export of the manuscript before November. Under British law, if matching funds to equal the price the Getty paid in June can be raised before that date, the 700-year-old manuscript can stay in Britain. The Art Collections Fund has asked the Heritage Lottery Fund -- which distributes British national lottery money -- to reverse its initial refusal to help obtain the manuscript for the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Pamela Johnson, vice president of communication at the J. Paul Getty Trust, called the Macclesfield Psalter “a rare and extremely important manuscript, which would add a great deal to the collection, which we make available to a very large audience.”

She added: “We regret that a decision on granting the export license has been deferred, for several reasons: There’s already a much larger manuscript by the same artist in the British Museum. The manuscript was sold at auction, and a British institution or anyone else had an opportunity to purchase it.”

With scenes from the life of King David and portraits of patron saints, the 252-page manuscript was likely commissioned in the 1320s by the Earl of Warenne, who was later excommunicated for repeated acts of adultery. The book also contains secular images (including a picture of a dog dressed as a bishop) and several jokes. The pages abound with images of rabbits, which are believed to be a reference to the earl.

Trying to keep the psalter in Britain was not a “a reflexive, chauvinistic idea,” Barrie said. “We cheerfully let lots of things go. Sometimes we are pleased they are going overseas. But this is something tied so closely to the history of this country.

“To lose it,” he said, “would be a terrible shame.”

Earlier this year, the Getty lost a long-running battle to buy Raphael’s “Madonna of the Pinks” from the Duke of Northumberland.

The British government helped the National Gallery in London buy the small devotional painting of the Madonna and Christ child for $41.75 million by stepping in with a tax break for the duke.