Eakins’ “The Cello Player”, formerly in the collection of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, was “deaccessioned” (a stupid and cowardly euphemism for “sold”) to an unnamed buyer. I was assuming this might be Alice Walton, who had been trying to raid the Gross Clinic, but that doesn’t appear to be the case, so I don’t know.

Of the Klimt paintings recovered by Maria Altmann, “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer” (see my post here) is in the Neue Galerie in New York; the other four were sold to undisclosed private buyers.

I recently returned from Phildelphia to the Boston area. Philadelphia is a city that I have loved since my parents took me there at Eastertime to view the Mukascy paintings in the Wanamaker Department store. Do you have any idea where those paintings are today?

Only on this last visit did I discover the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts and Thomas Eakins’ missing Cello Player! This museum seems to be hidden treasure and no wonder they could not raise enough money to keep both Eakins paintings. If the MFA and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museums could fundraise enough money to build huge additions (during these most dire economic times) then I do not understand why this museum could not when things were better back in 2007. The museum directors need to speak with Anne Hawley and Malcolm Rogers for advice on marketing and fundraising! Two years later, do you have any idea where the lovely Cello Player is? From the general public’s point of view, isn’t the Cello Player a “more lovely” painting AND threatened with being sold, more people would have donated? If only they and I would have known….

Another sad topic I would like to ask if you have any more information on is the sale of the four Gustav Klimt paintings in November 2006 by Maria Altman? More amazingly beautiful artwork that has disappeared from public museums to private individuals.

Thank you for your time.

Thanks for the nice comments about the site.

Interesting idea to compare Eakin’s original cost for materials. I’m sure Eakins would be spinning in his grave like a dynamo if he could see some modern developments regarding his work and other issues (like the way art is taught today).

Art as a commodity is just an unfortunate fact of life, I agree that we can only hope its destructive tendencies are not too dominant.

I note elsewhere: “In 1878, three years after Eakins made the painting, some of Gross’ former students bought it for Jefferson Medical College. They paid $200. Soon it will be sold — for $68 million.”

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6622315

I can’t tell if Eakins got the $200 or a dealer/middleman.

It turns out a $200 investment 131 years ago at a mere 10.2 percent compounded annual interest gives you $68 million now. Astonishing isn’t it. In real dollars with inflation, the rate is much lower.

The painting looks to be mostly umbers, white and black. It would be interesting to know the 1875 price of Eakins’ materials (wood, nails, fabric, glue, pigment, oil, and so forth) for this 52 square foot painting. Could it be that Eakin himself took a loss on the painting? If someone whispered “$68 million for your Gross Clinic painting” over Eakins’ grave, I wonder if he might not come back to life.

As for those managing the inheritance of the unctuously wealthy, I suspect creating a non-profit “foundation” holding company for investment grade art objects, which also permit one to escape capital gains liabilities, is reason to expect new museum building in the hinterland to become a growth industry, as well as brokering the looting of the public treasuries of “growth” objects rather than growth stocks. I hope it’s less destructive for the US than Europe’s experience in the early 1940s.