Displaying items by tag: charitable trust

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation announced that it will donate $40 million to a fund established to help save the Detroit Institute of Arts’ finest works from being sold at auction and avoid cuts to municipal pensions. The fund, which was created after the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy in July 2013, now totals $370 million. Detroit is currently over $18 billion in debt and creditors are seeking repayment.

Following the bankruptcy filing, Kevyn Orr, Detroit’s emergency manager, asked Christie’s to appraise the 2,781 city-owned works housed in the Detroit Institute of Arts. The auction house estimated the works to be worth anywhere from $452 million to $886 million. The Institute has opposed any sale, stating that its art is held in a charitable trust and cannot be part of any auction to help pay for Detroit’s substantial debts.

The Kellogg Foundation, which was founded in 1930 by breakfast cereal pioneer Will Keith Kellogg in Battle Creek, Michigan, provides funds for the promotion of the welfare, comfort, health, education, and safeguarding of children and youth, regardless of sex, race, creed or nationality.

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England has acquired ‘Venice: The Fondamenta Nuove with the Lagoon and the Island of San Michele’ by Venetian painter Francesco Guardi. The museum acquired the rarely seen work under the Acceptance in Lieu of Inheritance scheme, which allows inheritance tax debts to be written off in exchange for the acquisition of objects of national importance. The Guardi painting cleared a bill of nearly £2 million. A grant from the Art Fund and contributions in memory of Jo Wilson and the Sir Denis Mahon Charitable Trust helped make up the difference in value, allowing the Ashmolean to acquire the work.

Guardi, who was born into a family of Venetian painters, is best known for his views of the city, which were especially popular with British tourists visiting Italy. Created for a British Grand Tourist, ‘Venice: The Fondamenta Nuove with the Lagoon and the Island of San Michele’ is one of Guardi’s early lagoon views illustrating the northern shore of Venice, the island of San Michele, and distant snow-capped mountains, which are rarely visible from the mainland.

Professor Christopher Brown CBE, Director of the Ashmolean, said, “This painting brings to the Ashmolean a poetic masterpiece in which Francesco Guardi reveals his full artistic potential. As the first major Venetian view-painting to enter the Museum’s collection it makes an inspirational addition to the Britain and Italy Gallery. We are profoundly grateful to the Arts Council, the Art Fund, and other supporters for making this acquisition possible.”