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A Historic Sale: An Interview with Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller on the Upcoming Sale of His Pre-Columbian Artworks On June 9, 2012, the Catalan daily La Vanguardia announced that at the end of 2012, the Museu Barbier-Mueller d’Art Precolombí in Barcelona would be closing. Since it opened in 1997 in the Palau Nadal, one of the city’s most notable examples of Gothic architecture, the museum has been exhibiting some 330 works of pre-Columbian art from the prestigious 36 Barbier-Mueller Collection. A complete surprise for the museum’s audience, the decision for closure had been made by both the Barbier-Mueller family and the city of Barcelona due to the city’s inability to acquire the unique collection. Despite the terms of the acquisition offer being very favorable to Interview by Elena Martínez-Jacquet the city, difficulties imposed by the Eurozone rendered the proposition improtious at any cost. In September, at the same time that the eleventh Parcours des Mondes was held in Paris, Sotheby’s revealed that it would be offering the collection at auction on March 22 and 23, 2013, under the expertise of Jacques Blazy. A few months before this sale, we had the pleasure of meeting with Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller to talk about the background of these pre-Columbian artworks and to discuss how he felt about being separated from them, a situation that is always difficult for any collector. FIG. 1: An icon of the Barbier-Mueller Collection: A vessel in the form of a duck. Tzintzuntzán style, Tarasco, Michoacan, Mexico. AD 1200–1500 (TL: AD 1300–1600). Terracotta. H: 17.6 cm. Ex Guy Joussemet, before 1970. Musée Barbier-Mueller, inv. 500-29. Photo: Studio Ferrazzini Bouchet. ART in motion


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