Charles and Thomas Danziger are the lead partners in the New York firm Danziger, Danziger & Muro, specializing in art law. Visit their website www.danziger.com.

Georgia O'Keeffe Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Edouard Vuillard Marsden Hartley George Bellows Edgar Degas Pierre-Auguste Renoir Edouard Manet

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Our response: This is a gray area, since some professional codes, such as that of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), seem to permit it. But we warned that the AAM and the AAMD strongly criticized Vermont’s Shelburne Museum for its 1996 sale of sculptures and pastels by Degas and Manet at Sotheby’s and its use of the $31.2 million in proceeds for conservation and security. Similarly, the Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University was lambasted in 1991 for auctioning at Christie’s 11 paintings by artists such as Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and Vuillard and using the $3.65 million in proceeds in part for conservation and to advance the museum’s “educational role.” Critics complained that the Rose had set a terrible precedent by converting a portion of its collection into cash—“selling one of your children to feed the others,” according to the director of another museum.

The next conference speaker noted that some institutions, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, will sell major works only through public auction. “Does that mean American museums are required to sell publicly?” Renée asked nervously before being shushed by the crone sitting directly behind us—who gave Thomas’s chair a hard kick for emphasis.

As it turns out, the Met’s was a special case. It voluntarily agreed to public sales after a New York state attorney general investigation into its controversial 1973 decision to quietly deaccession paintings that had been donated by the philanthropist Adelaide Milton de Groot. The Met needed the money to purchase Velázquez’s famous 1650 Portrait of Juan de Pareja. In her will, de Groot had inserted a “wish”—which the Met argued was nonbinding—that if the museum disposed of any of her works, it would give them to other institutions. Although the attorney general did not pursue legal action, the Met did change its policy by making deaccessioning more transparent.

The day’s final speaker suggested that deaccessioning is much less common in Europe because museums there, unlike in America, tend to be entirely state funded and therefore regard their holdings as inalienable public property. But we told Renée that times are changing, at least in the U.K. Just this past February the Museums Association, whose 1,500 members include most museums and galleries in the U.K., reversed its 30-year ban on deaccessioning and announced that institutions should make themselves more dynamic by disposing of works. The change was partly prompted by the efforts of the struggling Watts Gallery, in Surrey, to maintain itself by auctioning two important Victorian paintings at Christie’s London this month: Albert Joseph Moore’s Jasmine, estimated at £600,000 to £800,000 ($1.2–1.6 million), and Edward Coley Burne-Jones’s The Triumph of Love, estimated to bring £400,000 to £600,000 ($799,000–$1.2 million). 

“In that case, I’m catching the next flight to London,” Renée said, climbing over us. “There’s a museum in Sussex with some darling decanters.”

Despite the many interruptions, we did learn at least one important lesson at the conference: No matter where you stand on deaccessioning, always sit on the aisle.

"Deal or No Deal?" originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's June 2008 Table of Contents.