At a meeting of the Trustees on 24 November 2011, the painting by Henry Tanworth Wells, “Letters and News at the Lochside”, was discussed. Last year the Trustees had considered the sale of the painting, which currently hangs in Arisaig House, to raise funds for the Museum – to acquire land for access to build an extension.
Richard Sidgwick, Chairman of the Trustees reported that “when the decision to sell was made at the end of last year, we were unaware both of the strength of local feeling and the perception of its importance as part of the Museum’s collection, for which we can only apologise”. For those reasons, we have decided to reverse the decision to sell and are looking again at our long held view that we do not wish to displace existing exhibits to make the necessary space available.
Display of the painting in the Museum, or in a planned extension, will secure its long term future and it will be appreciated by the thirty thousand visitors that we are now able to anticipate annually.
We have been in touch with the secretary of the Community Council and the owner of Arisaig House. There are no immediate plans to remove the painting and, as previously promised, nothing will change until we fully discuss the position with Arisaig Community Council.”