Rent-a-Rose: Sotheby’s Persuades Brandeis to Lend Collection for Profit

This means that a borrowing museum exhibiting the Rose works may, in effect, be mounting a very prestigious presale exhibition, enhancing the marketability and eventual price of a collection that Brandeis still says it reserves the right to sell. Not a pretty prospect.

What's in this for Sotheby's? Edgers says that "the university has a deal in place, if it decides to sell art, to put the works up for auction through Christie's." Christie's had appraised the collection (scroll down) at the behest of the Rose's former director, Michael Rush. Whether or not Sotheby's gets a fee for brokering Rose rentals, or an eventual chance to auction Rose art, it might get the satisfaction of scuttling a big potential payday for its competitor. Neither Brandeis nor Sotheby's would tell me the details of their agreement nor what kinds of renters (private or public) they are contemplating.

Here are my own suggested guidelines to be followed when exploiting the Rose collection as a cash cow, directed towards making a dicey situation somewhat less problematic:

---Preference should be given to Boston-area museums or educational institutions, so that the collection remains accessible to the Brandeis community for whom it was intended.

---Under no circumstances should Rose works be lent for private use by collectors or corporations.

---A core collection of important works from the Rose's "permanent" collection should remain on campus, with the right to borrow back works from renters for educational or exhibition purposes.

Here's Brandeis' press release on the subject. At least we have this commitment:

The university has not sold any art since that vote [by Brandeis' board, to authorize sales], and will not do so while it examines non-sale alternatives [emphasis added].