Can a state sell-off its public art collections?

A study that considered the possibility of selling art from public collections in France was submitted to the Minister of Culture last week. Sophie Cachon lauds the report's negative conclusions. "We can easily imagine that the Mona Lisa or other classics of painting are untouchable, but we ignore the destiny that could befall other works, believed to be cluttering up the storerooms. ... At what price should they sell the pieces that are rarely displayed ? Have they thought about doing the same thing with the rarely-read books in the National Library of France ? ... The [report's] conclusions are far from being favourable to this idea, judged by its author as 'a little iconoclastic.' ... A Museum is first and foremost the sum of knowledge sedimented by time. A sort of long memory, living and evolving, totally incompatable with the short term and the world view that it imposes."

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