MANscoop: PAFA deaccessions a star Eakins

First on MAN: The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts has sold what may have been its best Thomas Eakins: The Cello Player. The painting was sold to a private collector, a museum spokesman confirmed.

Proceeds from the deaccessioning will be applied toward PAFA's co-purchase of Eakins' The Gross Clinic, which PAFA and the Philadelphia Museum of Art are co-purchasing from Thomas Jefferson University.

According to the Philadelphia Museum of Art's website (taken before The Cello Player sale) the two institutions have raised less than half of the painting's $68 million purchase price.

Eakins painted The Cello Player in 1896. It portrays celebrated cellist Rudolph Hennig, a Leipzig Conservatory product who moved to Philadelphia. PAFA purchased the painting for $500 in early 1897. It was Eakins' first museum sale since 1879 -- and he split the fee with Hennig. The painting was included in the Met's just-closed Americans in Paris 1860-1900 show. (Explanation: The painting helped Eakins earn an 'honorable mention' at the 1900 Exposition Universelle).

PAFA board vice-chair Herbert Riband recently told the Philly Inky that deaccessioning to raise money for The Gross Clinic was a possibility. No word yet from PAFA on whether this will be its only deaccessioning, the sale price, or the identity of the buyer. I have a phone call into the PMA to see if they will be deaccessioning as well.

UPDATE, 11:40 pm: The Philly Inky follows MAN, goofs on the name of Eakins' cellist. NYTer Carol Vogel follows MAN too. Gee, I wonder why "PAFA announced..."