Quickly, as it should be, the Association of Art Museum Directors today sanctioned the Delaware Art Museum for deaccessioning William Holman Hunt’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil yesterday. It was totally expected. The notice reads, in part:

…we ask our members to suspend any loans of works of art to, and any collaborations on exhibitions with, the Delaware Art Museum, until notified by us that the sanctions have been suspended or removed.  While each of our members needs to consider this request individually and make its own decision, it is AAMD’s strong belief that the actions of the Delaware Art Museum are contrary to the long term interest of each and every art museum.

The full statement is here.

The museum yesterday issued a bland, factual two-sentence announcement of the sale yesterday, not commenting on the picture’s failure to go higher than half the low presale estimate.

It’s unclear why the painting did so badly. It was a record for Holman Hunt, Christie’s said. Other lots in the sale of Pre-Raphaelite paintings exceeded their estimates, though at lower price points. Is it conceivable that collectors stayed away, not wanting to get involved with a deaccessioned work? Perhaps — thought I’ve never met a collector who really wanted something that would be deterred by such considerations.

Meanwhile, how much will the sanctions hurt Delaware? In the short term, very little. According to it website, the next three special exhibitions are Performance Now, Nature Morte: Platinum Prints by Bruce Katsiff and From Houdini to Hugo: The Art of Brian Selznick, which takes the museum through next January. After that, probably much more. 

 

Today’s sad sale at Christie’s in London, where Isabella and the Pot of Basil, which was being deaccessioned by the Delaware Art Museum, failed to raise much money — just $4.24 on the hammer, versus a low estimate of $8.4 million (and we don’t know if Christie’s waived the commission or not) — begs another look at the situation there.

Just last week, no less an authority than Timothy Rub, director of the Philadelphia Art Museum, writing against the deaccessions in the Wall Street Journal, wrote:  “Given its importance, the work may fetch much more than that.” I’m not blaming him for optimism — no one can predict markets — but I do believe the Delaware museum trustees had been thinking the same way. Now, trustees may have difficulty raising $30 million, their goal, by selling just four works.

Rub’s larger point was about those very trustees: “It is important to recognize that the key to this issue is good governance.” What he left unsaid is that trustees made the fundamental mistake several years ago, when they expanded the museum.

In comments to Rub’s article, Gail O’Donnell, a former museum official made a few but damning points, including:

• The Wilmington population is 80,000, a smaller market than those of the institutions criticizing the Delaware Art Museum.
• The museum’s “hard to sell” building, unlike the Folk Art Museum in New York, is in a residential neighborhood and could not be sold.
• The museum’s donor pool is limited.

But why weren’t those trustees thinking about those items when the museum expanded, which caused the debt the museum is now struggling to pay? To quote from the museum’s website:

On June 26, 2005, the Museum reopened with extensive renovations to the original 1938 building and three new Museum wings, offering new facilities for the permanent collection and special exhibitions, arts education programs, the Thronson Café, the Museum Store, offices, meeting areas, and collections care facilities. Total facilities now include over 80,000 square feet of space.

In hindsight, one has to ask: Why did Delaware, with such a small population, feel the need to expand?

Museums have been on an expansion jag since at least the mid-90s, almost unrelentingly. Even during the recessions, expansions continued, and Delaware was far from alone. But it’s sad that they seemed to value that bigger, fancier building more than what it is in it — because that’s what it looks like now.

To show how high tensions have risen, O’Donnell made an astonishing, low-blow accusation at the end of her comment:

…were the museum to close and dissolve its collections, the very institutions that might benefit, acquiring works at fire-sale prices, are those that are active in their condemnation of this action.

I really highly doubt that the Philadelphia Museum would grab at Delaware’s collection.

Now, it seems, Homer’s Milking Time and Calder’s Black Crescent, are next to go.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum

 

 

For half the low estimate.

Today’s sale in London must be shaking trustees of the Delaware Art Museum. Isabella and the Pot of Basil just sold for £2.5 million, hammer price. That’s $4.24 million. 

The presale estimate was £5 million to £8 million.  It was hard to tell from the Internet view, but it looked like there was just one bidder. 

So, I guess trustees should forget any thoughts they may have had of selling just three works of art to make their $30 million goal.