While there has been a bit of controversy over whether or not Detroit should sell off the artwork owned by the city to repay creditors, that hasn’t stopped them from having the works appraised. It has taken quite a bit of time, but Christie’s has completed the appraisal of almost 2,800 works at the Detroit Institute of Arts and has determined the value to be in the range of $454-867 million. That works out to roughly $162,000-309,000 per piece! Keep in mind that some of the works make up a significant portion of that estimate, such as Van Gogh’s Self Portrait with Straw Hat which is estimated to be worth between $80-150 million on its own. And let’s not forget that we are talking about $18 BILLION of debt. Even at the high estimate, they are not making a huge dent in that figure.
