Do we need an insurance to visit a museum?
January 25, 2010 by Karin
Comments (2)
New York woman falls, rips Picasso painting
(AFP) January 25th, 2010
NEW YORK — A significant (£80million/$130million/
E 92million) Pablo Picasso painting was damaged after a
woman attending art class lost her balance, fell into
"The Actor" and tore it, The Metropolitan Museum of Art said.
The unusually large canvas, measuring 77.25 by 45.38 inches
(196 by 115cm), sustained a vertical tear of about six inches
(15cm) in the lower right-hand corner in the accident on
Friday.
The Met said the damage did not impact the
"focal point of the composition" and that it should be repaired
in the coming weeks. It has been removed from the gallery and
taken to the museum’s conservation studio for 'assessment
and treatment', the statement added. Repair work should be
"unobtrusive," it added.
The museum did not elaborate on why the woman fell. The
woman was uninjured, the museum spokesman said.
I found some more cosmic banana peels in art.
One day on Park Avenue, a truck delivered a batch of Impressionist paintings from a family’s home in the Hamptons to their apartment in Manhattan. With some but not all of the art unpacked, the lady and man of the house went out for the evening, leaving instructions for their maid to finish up and get rid of the boxes.
In the morning, as the owners began to get the art ready for the walls, they realized that they were short four paintings.
The maid had worked for the family for more than 10 years and was above suspicion, Mr. Quinn said.
The conclusion was that the paintings, still in their crates, had ended up in the trash, he said. They were long gone by the time the insurance investigators arrived.
A drawing by Lucian Freud valued at more than $100,000 was accidentally put through a shredder by Sotheby’s in London in 2000.
A man tripped over his shoelace on a staircase at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, and managed to shatter three
Qing dynasty porcelain vases.
A painting by Giorgio de Chirico, “Piazza d’Italia,” was hanging on the wall of a townhouse in the Netherlands when demolition
began on a bank next door. The wrecking ball came through the wall of the house and shot a perfect hole through the canvas.
In Germany, a Ming dynasty lacquer plate — about 600 years old — was hit by a housekeeper’s elbow and ended up in bits on the ground.
Karin 45 days ago
Tangiers
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Stephen A. Wynn, an American casino resort/real-estate developer owns an extensive art collection including paintings by Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Manet, Matisse, Warhol, Turner, Rembrandt.
The centerpiece of the collection is Le Rêve, the Picasso portrait. Wynn purchased the painting in 1997 for $48.4 million.
In 2006 he reportedly was to sell it to Steven A. Cohen for $139 million, which would at that time have been the highest price paid for any piece of art. However, he put his elbow through the canvas while showing the painting to a group of reporter friends to which he had just revealed the alleged sale.
This canceled the sale, and after a $90,000 repair, the painting was estimated to be worth $85 million.
Wynn sued his insurance company over the $54 million difference with the virtual selling price, possibly exceeding his own buying price.
The case was settled out of court in April 2007.
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I don't think my liability insurance covers such amounts. So, darling readers of this comment....you are all well adviced to stick to virtual musea. If I may make a suggestion: try ameanet.org ;)
Love, Tangiers
Tangiers 46 days ago