Terms of Sale

Last updated 19 October 2026

These terms govern the sale of works presented on museumprivate.com. Please read section 8 carefully: it sets out when you may cancel and when you may not.

1. What you are buying

Every work on this site is carved by hand from solid hardwood and exists once. There is no second copy and no production run. Each is designed by George Bratu and cut by a named master carver on the East Coast of Africa.

Because the material is a living one, colour, grain, figure, fissures, mineral lines and small variations in dimension differ from one work to the next and from the photographs. These are characteristics of the material and of hand carving, not defects. Photographs and measurements are given as accurately as we can; stated dimensions may vary by up to 2 cm. Wood also moves with humidity and temperature for the life of the piece. We describe each work honestly before you commit, and we will send you further photographs, close-ups or a video of the actual piece on request. Nothing in this paragraph affects your statutory rights if a work is genuinely faulty or not as described.

2. No order is placed on this website

This site is a catalogue. It takes no payment and has no basket. An enquiry, a reservation request or a conversation by email is not a contract.

A contract comes into existence only when we send you a written order confirmation naming the work, the price, the delivery address and the lead time, and you have paid the deposit set out in that confirmation. Until then either side may walk away with nothing owed.

3. Availability

Since each work is unique, it can be sold once. Works already sold are marked on the site, but two collectors can enquire about the same piece within the same hour. Availability is confirmed in writing, and confirmed in the order confirmation.

4. Price, currency and taxes

• Prices are shown in euro (EUR) and are the price of the work itself.
• They exclude crating, freight, insurance and handling, which are quoted separately once we know the destination.
• They exclude import duty, customs clearance, VAT and any other tax or charge raised in the country of delivery. Those are payable by the buyer, directly to the authority or carrier concerned. Where UK VAT applies, it is shown on the invoice.
• We quote freight at cost from the carrier. We do not publish global shipping estimates because a 4 kg carving and a 300 kg table in the same container behave nothing alike; tell us the city and we price the actual crate.
• A price quoted in an order confirmation holds for 14 days.

5. Payment

Unless your order confirmation says otherwise:

• 50% of the price of the work is payable on order confirmation. This reserves the work and takes it off the market.
• The balance, plus crating and freight, is payable before the work leaves the workshop. We send photographs of the crated work with the final invoice.
• Payment is by bank transfer to the account named on our invoice. We never ask for payment details by email or by telephone, and we never change our bank details mid-order. If you receive a message appearing to come from us that asks you to pay into a different account, do not pay it — telephone us.
• Title in the work passes to you on receipt of the final payment in cleared funds.
• Where you have a right to cancel under section 8, the deposit is refundable in full and nothing in this section limits that. Where no right to cancel applies — a commission, a work personalised at your request, a business purchase, or a delivery to a country whose law gives no such right — the deposit is not refundable once we have taken the work off the market for you.

6. Lead time and dispatch

For a work already finished and in store, we normally crate and dispatch within 10 to 15 working days of final payment. For a commission, the lead time is stated in the order confirmation and is an estimate made in good faith: hand carving does not run to a factory schedule, and a piece is not released until it is right. We keep you informed, with photographs, as the work progresses.

Ocean freight to the Gulf typically runs 3 to 6 weeks from dispatch, to Europe 4 to 8 weeks, to East and South-East Asia 3 to 6 weeks. Air freight is available for smaller works. Customs clearance at the destination is outside our control.

7. Delivery, risk and damage

• Works are crated in purpose-built timber crates, fumigated and marked to ISPM 15 where the destination requires it, and insured in transit for the full invoice value unless you tell us otherwise in writing.
• If you are buying as a consumer, the work remains at our risk until it is delivered into your physical possession — or that of someone you have named to receive it.
• If you are buying as a business, or you appoint your own carrier or freight forwarder, risk passes to you when the crate is handed to that carrier, and we sell FCA at the port or airport of origin.
• Delivery is kerbside or to the loading bay unless we have agreed and quoted for placement inside the building. Several of these works weigh more than two people can carry; please tell us before dispatch about stairs, lifts, door widths and access, so the quote is real.
• If the crate arrives visibly damaged, note it on the carrier’s paperwork before you sign, and send us photographs of the crate and the work within 7 days of delivery. That is what the transit insurer requires. Please do not dispose of the crate until we have agreed what happens next.
• Unpack the work and look at it when it arrives. If anything is damaged, missing, or not as described, write it on the delivery note at handover and tell us, with photographs, within 7 days. If the work is taken into your possession and nothing is recorded within that time, it is treated as accepted in sound condition and as described. This does not affect your legal rights, and it does not cover a fault that could not reasonably have been seen on that inspection.

8. Cancellation and returns

We apply the consumer law of the country we deliver to. Rights of cancellation differ from one country to another, so rather than impose a single rule worldwide we give you whatever the law of your country of residence gives you, and we state it in writing in your order confirmation before you pay anything. If the law of your country gives you a longer or stronger right than the one described below, that right applies.

Consumers in the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area

You may cancel within 14 days of the day you receive the work, without giving a reason, under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 and the equivalent national laws implementing Directive 2011/83/EU. Tell us in writing at contact@museumprivate.com — a clear statement is enough.

• Return the work within 14 days of telling us, crated to the standard it arrived in and insured for its full value. We will tell you how, and we will help.
• You bear the cost of return. For these works that cost is substantial — depending on weight, size and distance it can run from several hundred to several thousand euro, and for the heaviest pieces it may approach the outbound freight. Ask us for the figure before you order if it matters to you.
• We refund the price of the work, and the outbound delivery cost up to the cost of the least expensive standard delivery we offered you. If you chose air freight, express or a white-glove service in place of our standard option, the difference is not refunded.
• Refund within 14 days of the work reaching us, by the same means you paid.
• We may reduce the refund to reflect any loss in value caused by handling the work beyond what is necessary to examine it — a scratch, a mark, an attempted repair, a surface treatment, an adhesive pad, a drilled hole.

Consumers outside the United Kingdom and the EEA

The 14-day right above is a European one and we do not extend it by contract to the rest of the world. What applies instead is the statutory right of the country we deliver to. Those rights vary widely: some give a shorter withdrawal period, most exclude works made to order, and several give no right of withdrawal at all for a purchase of this kind, leaving only the protection that applies when goods arrive faulty or not as described.

We will tell you in your order confirmation which right applies to your delivery address, before you commit. Where the law of your country gives no right to cancel, cancellation is by agreement with us, and section 5 governs the deposit.

Commissions, and works personalised at your request

There is no right of withdrawal for a work made to your specification or clearly personalised — the exception in regulation 28(1)(b) of the 2013 Regulations, in Article 16(c) of Directive 2011/83/EU, and in the equivalent provision of most other consumer laws that grant a withdrawal right at all. This covers a piece carved to your dimensions, to your drawing, in a timber or finish you choose, or carrying your name, initials, crest or inscription cut into the work itself.

Because this removes a right you would otherwise have, we never personalise a work on our own initiative. It happens only if you ask for it, and only after you have confirmed in writing, in the order confirmation, that you have asked for it and understand the consequence. A certificate, a plaque or a label bearing your name is not personalisation and does not affect your right to cancel.

If you cancel a commissioned or personalised order after work has begun, the deposit is not refundable, and if the work is substantially complete the balance remains due.

Business buyers

No right of withdrawal applies to a purchase by a business, trade, gallery, hotel, developer or interior-design practice, in any country. Returns are by agreement only. Where you buy through a company, that company is the buyer and these are the terms that apply.

Always

None of the above limits your rights if a work arrives faulty, damaged or materially not as described. Those rights are set out in section 9, and no country’s law allows them to be signed away.

9. If something is wrong with the work

If you are a consumer, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 entitles you to a work that is of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described. If it is not, you have a short-term right to reject it within 30 days of delivery, and after that a right to repair or replacement, or to a price reduction or refund. Nothing in these terms reduces that.

The following are characteristics of solid hardwood or the result of use, and are not defects in the work: the natural movement, seasonal checking or fine surface cracking of solid hardwood; colour change from light, which every hardwood undergoes; damage from standing water, direct heat, a radiator, underfloor heating left uncontrolled or outdoor exposure; damage from moving the piece without proper lifting; or any alteration, refinishing or repair carried out by someone else.

10. Living with the work

We send care notes with every piece. In short: keep it out of direct sun and off a heat source, keep relative humidity broadly between 40 and 60 percent, wipe it with a dry or barely damp cloth and nothing else, use the wax or oil we supply, lift it rather than dragging it, and never let water stand on the surface.

Solid hardwood never stops moving. However long it has been seasoned, the wood exchanges moisture with the air around it — expanding when the air is humid, contracting when it is dry or air-conditioned. A piece set down in a new room takes several years to settle to the moisture level of that room, and most of the movement happens in those first years.

Fine surface checking, small fissures and slight movement at the joints can appear while it settles. These are characteristics of solid hardwood and of work carved from a single block. They are part of what the work is, not a defect in it, and they are not grounds for rejection, return or claim. There is more on this in Solid hardwood in a Gulf climate.

11. Provenance and copyright

Every work ships with a signed certificate naming the piece, its reference, the timber, the master carver, the year and the dimensions. The design, the drawings, the photographs and the texts on this site remain the intellectual property of George Bratu and Venda Art Limited. Buying a work transfers the work itself, not the right to reproduce the design.

12. Export, species and permits

We only use timber we can account for, and we supply the export documentation each destination requires. Some hardwoods are restricted under CITES or under the laws of the importing country. Where a permit is needed we obtain it before dispatch; where a destination prohibits a species outright, we will tell you before you commit rather than after.

13. Matters outside our control

We are not liable for delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control — weather, a port closure, a carrier’s failure, strike action, customs, export restriction, war, epidemic or the loss of a workshop. We will tell you promptly, and if a delay runs beyond 90 days either side may cancel and we will refund everything paid for a work not yet dispatched.

14. Liability

We do not exclude or limit liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited. Subject to that, and except where you are a consumer dealing with us as such, our total liability for any order is limited to the price paid for the work, and we are not liable for loss of profit, loss of use or indirect loss.

15. Complaints, law and jurisdiction

Write to contact@museumprivate.com and we answer within 5 working days. We would rather fix a problem than argue about one.

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. If you are a consumer resident elsewhere in the UK or in the EU, this does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory consumer law of the country you live in, nor of your right to bring proceedings there.