Lost Government Art

Here's one of the paintings which the Government Art Collection has lost: Edmund Havell's William Stratton, head keeper to Sir John Cope of Bramshill Park, Hampshire (1840). This is probably one of the first works that were destroyed when pro-Gaddafi Libyan thugs broke into the British embassy in Tripoli and set it ablaze, following a NATO air strike which killed members of Gaddafi's family. The head keeper would have been seen as a hated English toff. Still, those who run the Government Art Collection live in hope that it was looted and may show up. They have named two more paintings lost in that attack: Philip Reinagle's Harrier Killing a Bittern (1797) and Mountainous Landscape with Travellers in the style of Salvator Rosa.