Robin Pogrebin has the details of another museum where the art has become more valuable than the resources available for its upkeep:
Cole’s “Portage Falls on the Genesee”held pride of place as the house was turned over to Seward’s son, then his grandson and ultimately became the Seward House Historic Museum in 1951.
But early one morning last month movers escorted by the police pulled up to the house, removed the Cole landscape, which measures roughly 7 by 5 feet, from the drawing room and hauled it away. The Fred L. Emerson Foundation, which owns the artwork and once oversaw the museum, says the canvas — painted in 1839 and appraised five years ago at $18 million — is too valuable to be left in an institution that does not have the resources to protect it fully. The foundation plans to sell the painting at Christie’s, share the proceeds with the museum and hang a copy in its place.
Painting’s Removal Stirs Outcry (NYTimes)
