More on that lost 'n found Renoir
November 16 2012
Picture: Washington Post. Susan Helen Adler, niece of Saidie Adler May, poses outside the Baltimore Museum of Art. On her T-shirt is a photo of the stolen Renoir.
That Renoir bought in a flea market for just $7, and which turned out to have been stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art, has renewed tensions between the museum and the family of the collector who donated the picture to the museum, Saidie Adler May. From The Washington Post:
The relatives said they believe that the museum has not always safeguarded their family’s donations. Until late October, the descendants didn’t know that art donated by May’s sister, Blanche Adler, a prominent BMA donor, also had been stolen from the museum. They also complained that the museum does not display enough of May’s art.
Museum officials said the thefts happened a long time ago, and security has been beefed up considerably since. They noted that the museum can show off only so much from one family’s collection, and that May’s mix of classical and Egyptian works, Renaissance textiles, 20th-century European paintings, and even a Jackson Pollock, was given with no strings attached.
