Editing Metropolitan Museum of Art (section)

== Deaccessioning works of art ==
[[File:Retrato de Juan Pareja, by Diego Velázquez.jpg|thumb|[[Diego Velázquez]], ''[[Portrait of Juan de Pareja]]'', 1650]]
The Met has always [[deaccessioned]] works to improve the collection by using the proceeds to purchase better or more appropriate works. As noted above, it has deaccessioned nearly two-thirds of the founding purchase of Old Master paintings made in 1871.<ref name="www.metmuseum.org" /> As early as 1887, it sold 5,000 Cypriot objects in order to purchase Egyptian antiquities, and over the years it sold many thousands more works from Cyprus.<ref name="Gross-2009" /> 15,000 Egyptian objects were sold in the museum's shop in 1955, and nearly 10,000 works from other departments were earmarked that year for sale at auction.<ref name="Gross-2009" />

The Metropolitan Museum of Art spent $39&nbsp;million to acquire art for the fiscal year ending in June 2012.<ref>{{cite news|first=Robin |last=Pogrebin|date=July 22, 2013|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/arts/design/qatar-uses-its-riches-to-buy-art-treasures.html|title=Qatar Uses Its Riches to Buy Art Treasures|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170213115617/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/arts/design/qatar-uses-its-riches-to-buy-art-treasures.html |archive-date=February 13, 2017|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> In 2020, it spent $29,824,000 (with $6,747,000 coming from insurance and the sale of art).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Metropolitan Museum of Art |date=November 9, 2021 |title=Financial Statements for the Years Ended June 30, 2021 and 2020 |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/-/media/files/about-the-met/audited-financial-statements/2020-2021/financial-statements-for-the-year-2020---2021.pdf?sc_lang=en&hash=EF7FCCC97E72DDEEE506F8FE3FE58379}}</ref> In 2021, it spent $36,402,000 (with $4,007,000 coming from insurance and the sale of art).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Metropolitan Museum of Art |date=November 10, 2022 |title=Financial Statements for years ended June 30, 2022 and 2021 |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/-/media/files/about-the-met/audited-financial-statements/2021-2022/financials-and-footnotes-november-9-2022.pdf?sc_lang=en&hash=FB37E11ACFB23A751233C76411DD807F}}</ref> In 2022, it spent $74,432,000 (with $9,488,000 coming from insurance and the sale of art); in 2023 it spent $52,401,000 (with $7,444,000 coming from insurance and the sale of art).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Metropolitan Museum of Art |date=November 9, 2023 |title=Financial Statements for years ended June 30, 2023 and 2022 |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/-/media/files/about-the-met/annual-reports/2022-2023/the-metropolitan-museum-of-art---fiscal-year-2023-audited-financial-statements.pdf?sc_lang=en&hash=4063F31E755ED6B5FF847B19C83B1FDD}}</ref>

In the early 1970s, under the directorship of [[Thomas Hoving]], the Met revised its deaccessioning policy. It sought to acquire "world-class" pieces, including through the sale of mid- to high-value items from its collection.<ref name="Hoving-1993" /> Though the Met had always sold duplicate or minor items from its collection to fund the acquisition of new pieces, the Met's new policy allowed the sale of important items with high values, objects regarded as part of the museum's core collection. Hoving's deaccessioning practices, including secretive non-public sales that violated donor wishes, was exposed by John L. Hess in a series of articles in the ''New York Times.'' These exposés provoked widespread criticism when they came to light, and they were compounded by deceitful and misleading statements made by Hoving, who was censured by the College Art Association and the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA).<ref name="Cordova-2021" /> This resulted in an investigation of the museum by the [[New York State Attorney General]] [[Louis J. Lefkowitz]], who held public hearings in 1972. As a result of these hearings, the museum agreed to list in its annual report the total cash proceeds from art sales each year, and to itemize any deaccessioned objects valued at more than $50,000 each. It also agreed to sell those pieces at public auction and provide advance public notice of a work being sold if it had been on view in the last ten years.<ref name="Cordova-2021" /><ref>{{cite news |last=Pogrebin |first=Robin |date=January 26, 2011 |title=The Permanent Collection May Not Be So Permanent |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/arts/design/27sell.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151025181727/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/arts/design/27sell.html |archive-date=October 25, 2015}}</ref> Known as the "Hoving Affair", the deaccessioning scandal has been written about by Calvin Tomkins, in ''Merchants and Masterpieces'' (1970; rev. ed. 1989), Michael Gross in ''Rogues' Gallery'' (2009), and Martin Gammon, ''Deaccessioning and its Discontents: A Critical History'' (2018),<ref name="Cordova-2021" /> though the most comprehensive account remains Hess's 1974 book, ''The Grand Acquisitors.''<ref>Hess, John. L. (1974). ''The grand acquisitors''. New York: Houghton Mifflin.</ref>

Two of the objects purchased with funds generated by Hoving's deaccessions were highlights of the Met's collection. [[Diego Velázquez]]'s 1650 ''[[Portrait of Juan de Pareja]]'' (bought in part through deaccessioned works) and a classical Greek vase, the [[Euphronios Krater]], which depicted the death of [[Sarpedon (Trojan War hero)|Sarpedon]] (funded by the sale of the museum's classical coin collection). The latter, which proved to be looted, was repatriated to Italy in 2006. The Met has sold such valuable pieces as [[Edward Steichen]]'s 1904 photograph ''[[The Pond-Moonlight]]'' (which it regarded as a duplicate, since another copy was already in the Met's collection) for a record price of $2.9&nbsp;million.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4715106.stm| title=Rare photo sets $2.9m sales record| work=[[BBC News]]| date=February 15, 2006| access-date=February 18, 2013| url-status=live| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090131215727/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4715106.stm| archive-date=January 31, 2009}}</ref>

Hoving was criticized for selling important works from the museum to fund his acquisitions, including a Henri Rousseau and a Van Gogh, and he planned to sell many more, including 14 Monet paintings he characterized as "routine".<ref name="Cordova-2021" /> During the tenure of director Philippe de Montebello, the sale of a single Monet (together with the construction of purpose-built galleries) eventually led to the acquisition of two collections totaling 220 paintings, which established the museum's remarkable plein-air paintings collection.<ref name="Cordova-2021" />

Another deaccessioning controversy broke out in 2021, when the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) temporarily relaxed its guidelines due to hardships suffered by museums during the COVID pandemic. Previously, funds from deaccessioned works were only to be used to purchase other works for the permanent collection. The temporary guidelines, however, permitted these monies to be used for the "care" of the collection. The Met decided to use funds from deaccessions for collection care (to pay salaries). It was roundly criticized for this decision by the Met's former director Thomas P. Campbell (Montebello's successor), by cultural critic Lee Rosenbaum, and by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Christopher Knight, among others. They argued that the practice set a bad example for other museums and that the Met did not truly need these monies.<ref name="Cordova-2021" />