The commissioning and appropriation of art by leading banks – for both its aesthetic reward and as a route to securing social prestige for their owners – is nothing new.

In his book Medici Money – Banking, Metaphysics and Art in Fifteenth-century Florence, author Tim Parks outlines how the Medici family’s banking dynasty used its artistic patronage to “cleanse” wealth that, according to the strictures of the Catholic church, was perceived as ill-gotten through usury.