A prominent curator attacks the British government for not stepping up to keep Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks from being sold to the Getty and moved to the US: “Can anyone seriously suggest that the country would not be much much poorer without the great works of art in this exhibition? The National Gallery is the greatest place in the world for the study of early works by Raphael, and that’s where the picture should be. For God’s sake! If it’s not Raphael then it must be the work of some even greater artist whose name is currently unknown to us. Of course it’s a Raphael.”