Art for Sale: A Dereliction of Duty – interesting article about museums and the sale of their art. This week the Delaware Art Museum sold a wonderful piece by William Holman Hunt in London. I am sure that when their received the auction room’s estimate of £5-8M ($8.4-$13.4M) they felt here is an opportunity to cash in and, in turn, pay down their construction debt of $19.8M. Well, the painting was offered yesterday and only sold for £2.5M ($4.2M) — less than half of what was expected.
Now I do not have a problem with museums selling works of art that they never and will never show, that are sub-par (due to quality, condition, importance, etc.) or do not fit the scope of their collection. But selling an important Pre-Raphaelite painting that is part of an important Pre-Raphaelite collection seems downright stupid. In addition, it is rumored that two other works from the museum’s collection are going to be auctioned off — Winslow Homer’s Milking Time and Alexander Calder’s Black Crescent. Maybe after the “Hunt” disaster, they will rethink the sale of their other works.