Sold for a Mere Pittance... (the loss of the greatest works of art)

Fox News, Sunday (via the Art Renewal Center) ^ | August 6, 2000, London | By Dalya Alberge

[vannrox]

Sold for a Mere Pittance

Works of art worth tens of millions of pounds today have been sold off quietly by museums over the past 50 years for a few pounds.

British art institutions such as the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the Exeter City Museum have disposed of pictures by masters such as Van Dyck and Henri Fantin-Latour.

They were sold without public notice, dismissed as too unimportant to keep. Among the most serious cases is a painting by the 19th-century master, John William Waterhouse. In 1965, the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro sold it for £200 ($300) to a private collector; today it is worth more than £5 million ($7.5 million).

"Most of the works were sold off as they were deemed to be artistically worthless", Christopher Wright, a leading Old Masters scholar, said. He discovered evidence of the sales while preparing a nationwide study of British art for Yale University Press. "They have been sold off without public notice," he said. "Many of the museums didn't dare make it public. They've all been proved wrong."

Mr Wright expressed disbelief at the '50s decision of the Exeter museum to "rape" its collection of 160 works - "there is no other word to describe the destruction of an entire museum collection". The auctions, which involved selling works for as little as £5 ($7.50), included Waterhouse's Consulting the Oracle, four paintings by Fantin-Latour and one by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Caroline Worthington, fine art curator at Exeter, said that the sale took place at Christie's in 1954, "when High Victorian art was deeply unfashionable . . . We would like them back, most definitely." "We're talking household names", Mr Wright said, adding that many were bought by the heavyweight dealers Agnews and Colnaghi, who clearly appreciated the importance of the artists, even if the museums did not.

Tamsin Daniel, Truro's curator of art and exhibitions, said that the museum had needed money for storage and a lift. She conceded that the loss was painful. The Waterhouse went to a private collector bidding at Christie's. The £200 ($300) it cost him, she said, was "a bit different to what Andrew Lloyd Webber paid recently for a Waterhouse": £6.6 million ($9.9 million).

Leeds City Art Gallery and Museum, Mr Wright was told by an insider, actually disguised the provenance of works when selling them through an auction house. "They were described as property of Madame X," he said. "The sales were clandestine. They didn't say Leeds was de-accessioning. They were all Victorian pictures purchased from the Royal Academy. They got rid of dozens." Nigel Walsh, curator of exhibitions, expressed surprise at the news, denying that the gallery had sold anything. Nor did Evelyn Silber, its director, know anything about it until contacted by The Times. She later discovered that 37 paintings (nearly all Victorian) had been sold in 1939 under the then director, Philip Hendey, who went on to head the National Gallery in London. The Fitzwilliam in Cambridge sold more than 200 works in the 1950s. Although they were marked "property of the Fitzwilliam" in the catalogs, they were mixed up with hundreds of other lots, Mr Wright said. "They put them through the salerooms in dribs and drabs."

Mr Wright said that the Fortune-teller with Soldiers "was sold off as a copy, but it has since been published as the real thing worth millions".

Craig Hartley, a Fitzwilliam curator, said: "In retrospect, this seems a horrific thing to have done." Among other institutions to have sold off paintings, Mr Wright said, were the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich; the Cooper Art Gallery in Barnsley; the Holbourne Museum of Art in Bath; and the Birmingham City Art Gallery.

Note from the ARC Staff:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, allegedly did worse than this with the great collection bequeathed to them by Catherine Lorrilard Wolf during the 1950's and 60's. The deacquisitioning of 19th century art works was by no means atypical in this period, but took place in museums around the world.

[vannrox]

To ee examples of these artists and what was deemed to be worthless... GO HERE.

[Paul Atreides]

We would like them back, most definitely."

In the words of Audrey II: That's tough titty, kid.

[gd124]

Disgusting, yet typical of the bizarre desire to be fashionable that many institutions seem to have, regardless of whether what is fashionable has any true worth or not.

[Henchman]

In their parlance...Something isn't quite right" here. Is this the same museums that squirrel away art in basements for 100 years to prevent return of stolen property to the righful owners? Wouldst stoop so low? No fanfare? So, no payoffs to any one or curator kickbacks...hmmm...something is afoot!

[Asclepius]

Mr Wright said, adding that many were bought by the heavyweight dealers Agnews and Colnaghi, who clearly appreciated the importance of the artists, even if the museums did not ...

A deal is a deal, goofball.

[Paul Atreides]

Are these also the same museums that feature worthless stuff, like dirty bathtubs, and try to pass it off a culturally significant pieces of art?

[visualops]

That would be the way of the "art world". Galleries and museums are the last places that appreciate art. It's all fashion and politics. When a pre-teen who can copy-cat "modern art" is called the next Picasso and sells works for $20,000, you know the the whole thing is dog poo.

[ClearCase_guy]

That was what I was thinking. An exquisite painting by Waterhouse, depicting a heart-wrenching scene from Classical mythology? How trite. How boring. How worthless.

Paint spattered on a torn canvas by a drunken psychotic? I will gladly pay you $20 Million.

The 20th Century was not kind to the Art world. The inmates were allowed to run the asylum.

[Paul Atreides]

It is all about the continuing assault on standards. If someone can say that art can be anything from a blank canvas, to a dirty sock nailed to a board, then who are we to argue?

[txzman]

Want to bet those works "not worth keeping" went to trusted friends in the business?

[supercat]

It is all about the continuing assault on standards. If someone can say that art can be anything from a blank canvas, to a dirty sock nailed to a board, then who are we to argue?

Have you taken the Art or Crap challenge? How'd you do?

[stop_fascism]

I don't see the problem. A painting that would be hidden away in a museum's basement is sold to someone who will cherise it. Some day it will be sold back to a museum that wants it.

[RippleFire]

bump

[Antoninus]

For the record, from the Current Communist Goals circa 1964...

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

[Age of Reason]

Neat link. Thanks!

[ClearCase_guy]

I scored 14 out of 16. Interesting quiz.

[supercat]

I scored 14 out of 16. Interesting quiz.

Pretty good. Better than me. What'd you miss (by #)?

[Paul Atreides]

I got 8 out of 16. Of course, I said it was all crap, which it is. I pretty much knew which were considered "art," having taken a college course in modern art.

[Ditter]

In the 40's & 50's the Houston Museum of Art had a whole room full of Russells & Remingtons. They sold or traded them off for a bunch of of 60's & 70's comtemporary crap. They may have a couple left but not the room full that they had years ago.

[visualops]

11/16 lol