The most interesting part of this Detroit Free Press story on the sale of a Detroit-area Cezanne to a private buyer is that the news was kept quiet to limit the blowback on Detroit’s Grand Bargain and the rancor surrounding the DIA:
The Edsel & Eleanor Ford House quietly sold a Paul Cézanne oil painting in 2013 to a private buyer for $100 million, likely making the piece one of the 15 most expensive works of art ever sold.
The sale of “La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue du bosquet du Château Noir,” painted around 1904, was confirmed by Ford House president Kathleen Mullins.
The sale appears on the nonprofit cultural institution’s 2013 tax form and removes from the historic Grosse Pointe Shores mansion an early modern masterpiece that had been in the family since the mid-20th Century. The painting joins an exclusive club of about 15 artworks known to have sold for $100 million or more, according to lists compiled by online sources.
$100M for Cézanne painting? Ford House couldn’t refuse (Detroit Free Press)
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