What Not To Do With A $140M Painting

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed)
Oct 17th 2006 at 10:03AM

There is a reason why so much artwork - particularly older, valuable pieces - is displayed behind glass cases or out of the public's reach: the art is easily damaged and galleries and museums don't want to take unnecessary chances with their investments. When you are a private collector, those safeguards aren't always maintained. This isn't a problem when personal collections are small, but it is when you own a $140 million dollar painting, such as Picasso's La Reve, owned by Steve Wynn. Wynn, after selling the painting for just under that price, accidentally punched a hole in the canvas with a careless elbow.

Apparently, the painting can be restored and Wynn is taking this as a sign that the painting should not be sold, but when you're dealing with something so valuable in the first place, even private collectors might consider an extra precaution or two.

[Thanks, Mike!]

Tags: 140 million, art, painting, picasso, rare, wrtwork, wynn

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Rob in NoVA Oct 18th 2006 10:31AM

Wynn suffers from retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a degenerative eye disease...perhaps his degraded depth perception contributed to the damaging of the La Reve Picasso.

retinitis pigmentosa reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinitis_pigmentosa