The Delaware Art Museum announced the first painting it will auction off to repay its bond debt Tuesday.
The pre-Raphaelite Isabella and the Pot of Basil will be sold in London through Christie’s auction house on June 17. The work, based on a John Keats poem, was finished by English painter William Holman Hunt in 1868. The Delaware Art Museum purchased the piece in 1947.
The painting is the first of four the museum hopes to sell for a projected $30 million.
The museum owes $19.8 million dollars in bond debt taken on to pay for the renovation of the historic Kentmere Parkway building. The 2003 bond agreement required the museum pay back the money by 2037, but increased regulation in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis accelerated the repayment terms.
The museum says it looked at all possible options before deciding to sell a portion of its 12,500-piece collection. It will announce the other three paintings to be sold in coming months.
This piece is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.