Abstract
Abstract By the inter-war years, British national cultural institutions struggled financially to compete in the international art markets. Ambitions to hold the finest collections in the world remained unchanged, however, and these museums and galleries stayed active in the acquisitions market, despite the limitations imposed by economic downturns in 1930s Britain. Evidence of the difficulties faced by such institutions can be seen in the acquisition of the Codex Sinaiticus – one of the world’s oldest Bibles – by the British Museum from the Soviet Government in 1933. The Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, secretly instructed the Treasury to advance the funds to secure the manuscript before it came on to the open market, after agreeing with the trustees of the museum to meet half the costs if the museum would match them through what turned out to be a highly contentious public fundraising campaign.
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