Brâncuși sculpture no longer on display at art museum in Bucharest

The Wisdom of the Earth, the sculpture by Constantin Brâncuși that the Romanian state attempted to buy partly through a public subscription campaign, is no longer on display at the National Museum of Art of Romania (MNAR), Mediafax reported. This happened after the owners of the work declined to prolong the contract allowing it to be displayed there, despite a request from MNAR, sources told Mediafax. The sculpture was displayed in the Constantin Brâncuși Hall of the MNAR, which reopened in December of last year. The contract to display it expired in February of this year and was initially prolonged until May, and afterwards, till the beginning of June. This March, representatives of the Culture Ministry told Mediafax that the institution was planning on asking a new evaluation of the sculpture, depending on which a renegotiation or re-evaluation would take place. The sculpture was purchased in 1911 by engineer Gheorghe Romaşcu from the artist himself. The work was abusively taken over by the state in 1957. It was given back to the family 51 years later. In September 2014, when it went on sale, the sculpture was evaluated at EUR 20 million. The Culture Ministry was invited to exert preemption rights on it. Later, the Culture Ministry of the government of Dacian Cioloş agreed to pay EUR 11 million for the work. The government would have allotted EUR 5 million and the rest would have been raised through a public subscription campaign. The campaign only raised some EUR 1.2 million. Those who donated in the campaign will receive their money back, according to a recent government decision. Sculpture by Romanian Brancusi sells for record sum at New York auction editor@romania-insider.com