August 27, 2008

Missing Painting at Wellesley College May Have Been Tossed Out

A 1921 painting by the French cubist Fernand Leger is missing from the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College, and the painting might have been stolen or accidentally thrown out with some crates, The Boston Globe reports today.

The museum lent the painting, “Woman and Child,” to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art for an exhibit there through April 2007, the newspaper reports. After the Oklahoma museum shipped it back in a crate along with other paintings, it was stored in a vault at the Davis museum during renovations. Museum officials noticed the painting was missing last fall.

The officials don’t know what happened to the painting, but it has been reported as missing to the Art Loss Register, and an insurance company has already paid the college’s claim. The Globe reports that the average price of a Leger painting is in the neighborhood of $2.8-million.

Wellesley College art historians are saddened over the loss of the painting.

“We’ve all wondered about it,” Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, an associate professor of art, told the Globe. “It’s a tremendous loss for the college, but, beyond that, we just don’t have a lot of information.” —Kate Moser

Comments

1. There is a lot here —- that’s simply being left out.

   According to the Boston Globe (see link) Report, Matthew C. Leininger (Registrar of Oklahoma City Museum of Art), states that the painting was shipped in a crate that contained three items —- the missing leger painting, a Armand Guillaumin painting, and a László Moholy-Nagy painting.

   Whilst unpacking, who was reading the packing list?

   Now if the crate was tossed out, then how come the other two paintings are not missing?

   Or, alternately:

   How do you take out two paintings, and miss unpacking a third painting approx 4 sq. ft worth nearly $3 million?

   If it was stolen during the renovations, then the question arises, that who had access to the storage vault?

   I am assuming that the artworks worth hundreds of millions stored during renovations in a vault —- had some sort of security and access restrictions.

   — zahid    Aug 27, 04:14 PM    #

2. They weren’t secured. In the Globe article it says they were sitting on the 5th floor of the museum unpacked for months before they were ever taken to the vault.

   — M    Aug 28, 08:35 AM    #

3. They weren’t secured. In the Globe article it says they were sitting on the 5th floor of the museum packed in the crates for months before they were ever taken to the vault.

   — M    Aug 28, 08:35 AM    #

4. sorry I meant packed not unpacked

   — M    Aug 28, 08:37 AM    #

5. It is ironic that the University of Iowa is being vilified, and threatened with expulsion from museum associations, for even considering the sale of an item they hold in order to raise funds. A sale for the purposes of fund raising is not allowed, even though the painting is not lost thereby and remains, in all likelihood, available to the public. The kind of carelessness that simply loses a work of art, however, is not met with similar anger even when the painting is potentially lost forever.

   — artlover    Aug 28, 08:49 AM    #

6. Further evidence—as if any was needed—that higher education’s problem is too much $$$$, not too little.

   — Mark    Aug 28, 04:16 PM    #

7. “Further evidence—as if any was needed—that higher education’s problem is too much $$$$, not too little.” Get real. What a cheap shot – with no justification at all.

   — Al    Aug 28, 04:29 PM    #

8. Obvisously, the individual in charge of collections was not trained at a proper institution. Or else, something illegal is happening here.

   — Dan    Aug 28, 09:11 PM    #

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