Second time lucky for another Bolton deaccession
January 4 2012
Picture: Bonhams
Last year, Bolton Council decided to fund the construction of a new art storage facility by selling 36 paintings from Bolton Museum's collection. The pictures included works by Millais, Romney, Burne-Jones and Sickert. They hoped to raise £500,000, but have fallen short with £395,816, according to This is Lancashire.
Regular readers will know that many of the works have sold below their lower estimate, and some have failed to sell at all. The latest casualty is Charles Napier Hemy's The Riverside, which failed at £30-£50,000 at Bonhams in September. It will now appear again in January at £20-£30,000. The whole charade (lack of transparency, consigning with only one auction house, ill-advised sales etc.) should serve as an example to other councils in how not to conduct future deaccessions.Â
