Price of this suit: a world-record $602,500
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is on the hunt for top-notch collectibles. Its latest score: a 400-year-old set of Japanese armor.
By MARY ABBE, Star Tribune
December 13, 2009 - 3:29 PM
Signaling an aggressive new strategy to upgrade its collection, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts has paid a record-setting $602,500 for a rare set of 17th-century Japanese armor.
Made of hundreds of tiny iron and leather plates covered in lacquer and gold leaf, and lashed together with silk cords, the armor -- to be featured in the museum's Samurai gallery in January -- is "hands down the best to come on the market in at least three decades," said Matthew Welch, the museum's assistant director and curator of Japanese art, who has been looking for such a piece for 20 years.
At a time when many museums are cutting purchases as well as operating expenses, the Minneapolis institution is moving to take advantage of unusual opportunities in the art market. It has streamlined its acquisition process so curators can bid on items that previously would have gone to nimbler buyers. The museum's trustees have long urged the staff to expand and upgrade the collection, but it took a new director, Kaywin Feldman, who arrived two years ago, to break the bureaucratic logjam....more...
