De-accession time in Delaware (ctd.)
September 28 2014
Picture: DAM
The Delaware Art Museum's handling of their de-accessions goes from bad to worse. Not content with having sold their Holman Hunt 'Isabella with the Pot of Basil' for way under estimate earlier this year, they've now managed to handicap the potential sale of their next disposal, Winslow Homer's Milking Time.
I said back in August that it was inadvisable for the DAM to trail the fact that Milking Time would be offered privately before auction (at Sotheby's) in the autumn, for if the picture did appear at auction, people would know it had already failed to sell privately beforehand. They might thus sit on their hands at the sale, and be wary of any estimate (as happend with the Holman Hunt).
But here (at DelawareOnline) is the DAM's own chairman, Gerret Copeland, telling the world that Milking Time has already failed to sell, and "Basically, there's no interest in Homers." Which of course is phooey. According to DelawareOnline, Copeland is 'frustrated the art market decided not to cooperate'.
The DAM has now decided to raid its endowment to plug its debt hole, leaving it with half the funding it needs to be viable.
