AP Features, February 1st, 2007
To help finance a $68 million deal to keep Thomas Eakins' masterpiece "The Gross Clinic" in the city, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts said it has sold another Eakins painting, "The Cello Player."
One of the Academy's most recognizable artworks, the large 1896 oil portrait shows cellist Rudolf Henning with his instrument. It had been on public view since it was purchased by the Academy in 1897.
Herbert Riband, Academy board vice chairman, said he did not know the identity of the buyer and declined to disclose the price paid for the painting.
But had it not been sold to help pay for the deal to save "The Gross Clinic," Riband said, "We would have had a truly burdensome amount of debt."
"We gave it long and careful and agonizing consideration," Riband said.
A flurry of fundraising began after Thomas Jefferson University announced in November that it was selling Eakins' 1875 masterpiece, "The Gross Clinic," to a partnership of the National Gallery of Art and a planned Arkansas museum backed by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton.
The Academy and the Philadelphia Museum of Art sought to match the sale price and keep the iconic painting in Philadelphia. Academy and museum officials said Wednesday they had raised between $37 million and $38 million of the $68 million purchase price, from about 3,400 donors. The remainder of the $68 million was financed, with each art institution assuming responsibility for half the debt.
"The Gross Clinic" is on display at the Art Museum. It will move to the Academy on March 5, and will remain there until the end of June 2008.
