The depiction of a peasant couple who have paused in their work to offer a prayer to Christ, one of the most widely recognised images in French art, now belongs to Britain after it was accepted in lieu of tax.

The Angelus, a pastel drawing by Jean-François Millet, has never been on display to the public before, but the image is well known because a painting of the same name by the artist hangs in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. When the painting was first sold in 1889 it became the most expensive modern painting.

The drawing, which has been temporarily allocated to the British Museum while British galleries decide whether to bid for it, is one of 36 items accepted instead of death duties in the past tax year under the Acceptance in Lieu Scheme. The scheme, in effect, offers a tax break of 17 per cent as an incentive to leave important works to the nation rather than sell them at auction.

Two paintings by David Hockney are held by Tate after works by living artists were accepted for the first time. Study for a Doll Boy (1960) and The Berliner and the Bavarian (1962), which show how Hockney was inspired by Francis Bacon early in his career, were accepted after they were offered by the estate of Frith Banbury, a renowned theatre director.

Gerry McQuillan, the head of the scheme at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, said that works by living artists had never been accepted before because none of national importance had been offered. “The reason this has started happening is that people who were buying avant garde, 1960s artists are now passing on,” he said. “The legislation says that any work that is pre-eminent can be considered. It is more difficult to evaluate living artists, but we wouldn’t [reject works by artists such as Damien Hirst] in principle.”

Other living artists whose work was approved last year are Frank Auerbach, whose Portrait of Julia featured in a retrospective of the artist at the Royal Academy in 2001, and Sir Howard Hodgkin, whose Portrait of Peter Cochrane has been allocated temporarily to the National Portrait Gallery. Another highlight is Anthony van Dyck’s Portrait of Princess Mary, which has been returned to Hampton Court Palace 360 years after it was removed as part of one of the most courteous jailbreaks in English history.

It disappeared after Charles I, who was held captive in Hampton Court when his royalist forces were defeated by Oliver Cromwell, made a polite escape. The monarch, who was later caught and executed, left a note of gratitude to his captor, Colonel Edward Whalley, and asked that the portrait of his daughter be passed on to a royalist friend. Whalley obliged. The painting, which is worth more than £1 million, was allocated to the palace after it was offered by the estate of Sir Oliver Millar, a van Dyck expert.

The scheme also accepted The Triumph of Love, by Titian, which received wide news coverage when it was allocated to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The museum raised £430,000 to pay for the difference between the value of the painting and the tax owed by the estate.

Non-artistic collections have been accepted, such as the archive of Henry Addington, Viscount Sidmouth, who served as Prime Minister from 1801-1804. Despite his reputation as an ineffectual leader compared to William Pitt the Younger, who preceeded and succeeded him, he amassed a significant archive, including 50 letters from Horatio Nelson.

Devon Record Office, which acquired the archive, hopes that Addington will be remembered for more than the verse by George Canning, who wrote: “Pitt is to Addington / As London is to Paddington.”

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