Photo by Mike Lovett, courtesy Rose Art Museum

The Rose Art Museum

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Emily LaGrassa, director of communications for Attorney General Martha Coakley, said that Brandeis had informed the office only on Monday of its plan. Coakley will review wills and agreements made between the museum and the estates of donors to determine whether selling the over 7,000 works in the collection — 84 percent of which were gifts, according to the Boston Globe — violates donation terms.

"We do expect this to be a lengthy process," LaGrassa said.

On Monday, Brandeis announced the decision by university trustees to close the museum, much to the surprise and dismay of the art community — not least, the Rose's director Michael Rush. "I was shocked. I'm still shocked," Rush said. Museum trustees, donors, and supporters have spoken out against the decision, particularly the university's failure to notify the museum's leaders in advance.

"Nobody at the museum — neither the director nor myself nor anyone else — was informed of this or had any idea what was going," said Jonathan Lee, chairman of the Rose's board of overseers.

The Association of Art Museum Directors released a statement yesterday saying it was "shocked and dismayed" to hear of the plan; the Association of College and University Museums and Galleries issued one as well, writing that "we are saddened and disappointed.... This act is the culmination of a series of attempts to sell works of art from university and college museums throughout the U.S. over the last few years for the purpose of compensating for financial difficulties for which the museums have played no role."

The Boston Globe reports that a pair of petitions to save the Rose have been posted online and that Brandeis students were planning a sit-in protest. A Save the Rose Web site has also been launched.

The museum's collection, which includes seminal works by Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein, is believed to be worth $350 million to $400 million, although the slowed-down art market means that works could bring in far less than their estimated value. "It couldn't be a worse time to sell expensive art," said curator and art historian Robert Storr. "It is not only unprincipled, but bad economics."