Saturday, June 15, 2019

Second time as farce

The Barnes Unit of the Deaccession Police, having failed to stop the entire move of the museum to Philadelphia, is now protesting the recent sale, at the famed Pook & Pook auction house in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, of "156 lots of around 430 objects that had belonged to [Albert] Barnes and his wife Laura," including "furniture, clocks, textiles and porcelain objects," for a total hammer price of $98,000.  One attendee described it as "minor material—the cleaning out of an office," an office whose contents, they will have you know, were surely held in the public trust.