The Museum of Fine Arts has auctioned off two Degas pastels and a Renoir painting for a total of $14.5M. Given the utter popularity of the MFA’s Impressionist collection, one has to wonder what’s going on. Apparently, the museum is raising the funds to buy some undisclosed 19th c. French masterpiece. But the mystery is palpable. As the curator puts it,: “It’s an exceptional thing to be selling things of such importance. This comes because of an exceptional opportunity you will find out about later.'’ Are they getting something below market value? What will the coup be, especially given the likelihood that the seller would be a private owner? So many of the canonical impressionist/post-impressionist works that I can think of are in the hands of major museums already.
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