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The Portrait of Omai is part of Britain’s colonial past – but we shouldn’t let it go

Joshua Reynolds's Portrait of Omai being moved in 2005; it may soon leave the UK - PA
Joshua Reynolds's Portrait of Omai being moved in 2005; it may soon leave the UK - PA

The first time I saw Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Portrait of Omai, I was speechless. It was 30 years ago, when the painting hung in Castle Howard, the home of the Earls of Carlisle, who had owned it since 1796. I encountered it down a darkened corridor in a side room, and was instantly affected: a full-length, 90in portrait of a man dressed in a turban and flowing robes, it was an extraordinary blast of creams and whites.

The man’s pose is operatic. His right hand is extended, his left clutched across his waist. He peers out of the frame, as though gazing towards his far-off home. For the man wasn’t born in Britain: his skin is dark, and tribal tattoos ring his wrists and dot the back of his hands. In fact, the painting’s subject is Mai – the “O” prefix means “it is” – a nobleman from the Pacific Islands, whose arrival in 1774, on Captain Cook’s second expedition, whirled through Georgian high society. He met George III and Samuel Johnson, dined with the Royal Society, and spent a king’s ransom on souvenirs and clothes. It’s probable Reynolds knew Mai personally.

Now this magnificent painting could disappear from public view for ever. Since 2001, it has been owned by the Irish horse-stud magnate John Magnier. Between 2005 and 2011, it was displayed in Dublin’s National Gallery of Ireland. Aside from that, though, it has been in a secure art facility – and remained in the UK. But last year, its owner (it’s not clear whether Magnier still owns the painting) applied for a permanent export licence. This was blocked by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, an independent advisory board, which argued it had “global resonance”. The painting was valued at £50 million. If that money is not found by July 10, then it will go back into private hands and may well leave Britain.

As an artwork, it is exceptional. Reynolds was the leading British portraitist of his age. He was the first president of the Royal Academy, and his works exemplified the Georgian elite, capturing generals, statesmen, intellectuals, dukes and duchesses. As his great rival, Thomas Gainsborough, lamented: “Damn him, how various he is!”

It is also distinguished by the fact that it all appears to be Reynolds’s own work. His secret was his army of industrious assistants. A trained eye can easily spot the moment he lost interest in a piece: drapery and background were often filled in by his studio. Omai, though, has none of those tell-tale slippages: every inch shines with Reynolds’s signature brushstrokes. Further proof, perhaps, of how much the painting – or its subject – meant to him.

Joshua Reynolds, in a self-portrait from c1780 - John Hammond
Joshua Reynolds, in a self-portrait from c1780 - John Hammond

What, though, are we to make of its subject? Certainly, in our culturally sensitive times, the painting prompts an uncomfortable shiver. It is palpable evidence of one of the first waves of British colonialism – and the exoticised frisson that Mai stirred in Georgian society. There is something unhappy, too, in his depiction: while there is some suggestion that his white robes are native Polynesian attire, to my eye, they look Middle Eastern. His dramatic pose, meanwhile, is modelled on the Roman statue Apollo Belvedere. The painting, then, is a grand colonial fantasy: the classical dignity of Ancient Rome draped in the garb of the Middle Eastern “other”.

Yet it is more complicated than that. By all accounts, Mai was an honoured visitor. He chose to travel from the Pacific Islands with Captain Cook, seeking George III’s help in overthrowing his tribal rivals; and when he returned two years later, without troops but loaded with gifts, he was wealthy and esteemed. Reynolds may have drawn on Rousseau’s concept of the “noble savage”, but Mai seems to have enjoyed his celebrity. The artwork has historic significance too: it is the first full-length portrait of a non-white subject in British art.

But what happens to it now? On Tuesday, 20 leading academics and writers wrote to the Government, urging it to help drum up the £50 million needed to secure Omai for the nation. Valuation is far from an exact science, and I’d hazard this sum is a little high (the painting was last on the market in 2001 for £12.5 million). None the less, it seems unlikely that cash-strapped institutions will be able to buy it without outside help – or a generous private donation.

For most of the past two decades, the portrait hasn’t been seen in public; yet it is a vital chapter in the story of British art. I am opposed to it leaving the UK. But if it must go abroad – perhaps a Polynesian institution could host it? – it should be given due prominence, position and context. We cannot forget that art is not what is painted, but what remains in the public consciousness. And so this signal work deserves once again to be housed somewhere it can be seen, studied – and strike the viewer dumb.