A painting by Sandro Botticelli that was at risk of leaving Britain earlier this year has gone on display at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, where it was first shown in the 1930s. The Virgin and Child Enthroned, painted in the 1470s, was bought by the London-based Klesch Collection, which announced in May that it would loan the work to the Ashmolean for three years. The painting was previously exhibited at the museum in 1934–35, when it was still attributed to Botticelli's workshop.

The UK government placed an export bar on the painting in May 2025, valuing it at £10.2 million and setting a recommended price of £9,960,000 plus VAT of £272,000. The work had sold at Sotheby's in London in late 2024 for £9.7 million including fees. Over the summer it underwent conservation to remove discoloured varnish and later retouching, revealing well-preserved details of the Virgin and Child and restoring the picture's original cooler tones. The painting is also unusual for its generous use of gold leaf, which the museum notes was less widely used by Botticelli's time than by earlier Italian painters.

The panel has a long history. It was housed in the Convent of San Giuliano in Florence in the early 19th century, then moved to a small chapel attached to farmhouses in a nearby village. It later passed into the family of Giovanni Magherini Graziani, who sold it in November 1903 to the Italian dealer Elia Volpi. Harriet Sarah Jones Loyd, later Lady Wantage, bought it in May 1904 for £5,000, and it had been kept at Betterton House near Wantage in Berkshire since 1944. The Klesch Collection was started by A. Gary and Dr Anita Klesch with the acquisition of a set of Four Seasons by Giuseppe Arcimboldo in 2014, and its holdings of 15th- to 17th-century European art also include works by Caravaggio, Sofonisba Anguissola and Rubens.