Hammering the Hammer: 12-Year-Old Leonardo Disposal Still Pays Museum's Bills

In today's LA Times, Christopher Reynolds and Hugh Hart reveal that the financial windfall from the Hammer Museum's ethically problematic sale in November 1994 of the glory of founder Armand Hammer's collection, his Leonardo Codex, is the gift that keeps on giving:

To help bankroll the institution's exhibitions and programs, the Hammer...[has] been relying on interest income from the sale of Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Leicester to Microsoft founder Bill Gates for $30.8 million..., a move that, at first glance, conflicts with the code of ethics that major U.S. museums have endorsed for decades.

The "first glance" actually came from a certain blogger-to-be, who witnessed the sale at Christie's and then lambasted it as "a new high for manuscript-auction prices...[and] a new low for museum ethics," in a Nov. 26, 1994 Op-Ed piece for the NY Times. Here's a bit of historical background for Reynolds and Hart of the LA Times, from Rosenbaum in the NY Times:

It is shocking that when the Hammer Museum treated its founder's most valued trophy as a disposable asset, no cry was raised....The silence may...stem from the [art museum] directors' association's botched investigation of the proposed sale.

Mr. Neubert told me that the Hammer Museum's actions would have been condemned by the association as "absolutely inappropriate" if he had been certain that the museum had owned the manuscript. But he said Mr. Hopkins claimed that the manuscript was actually owned by UCLA, so he let the museum off on a technicality and didn't investigate further. The auction catalogue unequivocally identifies the codex as "property of the Armand Hammer Museum."

Now, the LA Times reports, the Hammer has finally decided to "start spending half of the codex interest for acquisitions---about $650,000 yearly---and half or less on exhibitions and programs." AAMD guidelines state that deaccession proceeds should go SOLELY for acquisitions.

Henry Hopkins' letter responding to my piece seemed to indicate that if proceeds from the manuscript were not needed to defray possible litigation costs in connection with the Hammer estate (which had been the rationale for the sale), the money would be used for acquisitions. This, as the LA Times tells us, is not what happpened.

Strangely, Hopkins' letter is on the Times website, but the Op-Ed piece itself appears to be missing. If you can find the missing link, do let me know!

Meanwhile, there's always microfilm.

UPDATE: I should have figured that Christopher Knight of the LA Times had beaten me to the punch back in 1994: The Hammer Falls on the Public's Trust, Nov. 15, 1994. It's another case of "great minds think alike" (but some are quicker than others)!