The Elizabeth Taylor Diamond, 33.19 carats
D color, gift from Richard Burton, to be auctioned at Christie’s, New York, on Dec. 13
Presale Estimate: $2,500,000-3,500,000
This could be a case of “Great Minds Think Alike.”
Whether or not he was inspired by my piece (which he doesn’t mention), the LA Times‘ Christopher Knight today posted a Critic’s Notebook piece closely tracking yesterday’s CultureGrrl post decrying LA MOCA’s astonishing decision to taint its nonprofit museum space with a presale exhibition for Christie’s upcoming series of auctions of Elizabeth Taylor‘s opulent possessions.
It should perhaps be noted that there have been previous instances of museums’ allowing art galleries to sell art on their premises—both the National Academy in New York and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia have hosted dealer-organized American art fairs.
Both Knight and I ended our screeds by blasting MOCA’s deal with Christie’s as a sellout. But the LA Times went me one better:
In negotiating the cheesy business arrangement with Christie’s…,
[Jeffrey] Deitch [the museum’s director] got played. He should have held out for a cut on the sale of
Liz’s famous 33-carat Burton diamond, expected to ring up between $2.5
and $3.5 million. The only thing worse than selling out is selling out
cheap.
My guess is that neither Christie’s nor LA MOCA minds it in the least when we fulminate against this deviation from proper professional practice. For this kind of brazen gambit, there may be no such thing as bad publicity (unless the Association of Art Museum Directors or the IRS decides to look into the commercial use of this nonprofit space).
By writing about this, we may, in fact, have haplessly helped boost those $50 “premium ticket” sales for the LA MOCA showing!