The Pittsburgh Tribune reports on deaccessioning at The Carnegie Museum:
The museum plans to sell five oil paintings by British artist George Romney in a Jan. 26 sale at Christie’s auction house of New York. None of the items has been displayed at the Oakland museum since the 1930s.
“We’re not doing it for the money,” said Louise Lippincott, the museum’s curator of fine arts. “Given the old masters’ price scales, none of them is wildly valuable.”
Together, the paintings might sell for $70,000 to $100,000, according to Christie’s. The proceeds would go into a fund for purchasing works of art, and might be used to acquire a higher-quality Romney drawing, Lippincott said. The Carnegie sold 185 items from its decorative arts collection in 2009. Officials said the pieces no longer fit the museum’s mission. Those sales raised more than $300,000, which was used to acquire other art.
Carnegie plans to sell five pieces of seldom-seen art (Pittsburgh Tribune)
