The Board of Trustees of the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, announced that the Pre-Raphaelite painting Isabella and the Pot of Basil by William Holman Hunt (1827–1910) will be sold in London through Christie’s auction house at its June 17 auction of Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite, and British Impressionist Art.
The museum purchased Isabella and the Pot of Basil in 1947 using general art acquisition funds. This is the first of up to four works of art that will be sold over the next several months. The painting is based on a poem by Keats on a woman putting the severed head of her lover in a jar.
The painter did two versions of Isabella, with a similar work owned by a British museum.
The museum’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously on March 26, 2014, to sell up to four works of art from the Museum’s 12,500-object collection.
The funds generated from the sale of four works, projected to be $30 million, will repay the full balance of the Museum’s $19.8 million bond debt and replenish the endowment. The sale of the other works of art will be announced in the coming months. No works of art acquired through gift or bequest will be sold.
The board has been under fire for the decision to sell the works, with critics claiming it did not go far enough in seeking alternatives.
At the same time, the board is dealing with a massive debt load, left by a trouble-plagued expansion project that also left the museum with added operating expenses. The art market remains active with the concentration of wealth in fewer hands leading to sales of paintings to private collectors at high prices.
An announcement on the pending sale of other paintings will be made. A well-known work by American artist Winslow Homer has been removed from museum listings. Museum officials have not confirmed whether the painting is being shopped.
