It had previously been unclear whether artists selling their works directly to collectors would be classified as Art Market Participants (AMPs) who must comply with the regulations where prices or linked transactions are the equivalent to €10,000 or more.

“HM Treasury have recently confirmed that it is not intended that artists—persons who create original art—are in scope of the AMP definition and therefore they are not required to register as an AMP,” says the HMRC’s official statement.

Numerous law firms and art organisations have been lobbying the DCMS and HMRC to get this result, arguing that, in the words of Craig Davies, a partner at the accountancy firm Rawlinson & Hunter, many artists “do not have the financial resources or specialists within their teams to be able to cope with the practical demands that the regulations would have placed upon them.”

Fionnuala Rogers, director of the London-based law firm Canvas Art Law, tells The Art Newspaper: “Really excellent news for artists today. Whilst we never expected artists selling their own works to be caught by AML, understandably with the threat of criminal penalties and only a couple of weeks to go, many had started to get nervous and were thinking about registering with HMRC as a precaution, despite the £300 registration cost being a very hefty fee for most working artists.”

Chris King, the co-founder and chief technology officer of the compliance company ArtAML, says: “The uncertainty over this issue was causing considerable distress. The focus is now clearly on businesses dealing in art”.

Hormazd Narielwalla, a London-based collage artist, says: “A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Art is about creating with less bureaucracy and red tape, and we were confronted with things that our minds are not programmed to address.”