Phillyist Wants to Know...Who Controls Your Private Property?

As you've no doubt heard (and several times by now), Thomas Jefferson University plans to sell "The Gross Clinic," a painting by local artist Thomas Eakins, to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas for a not-so-inconsiderable sum of money. Some members of the community are upset by this decision on the part of the University, and would prefer to see local art stay, well, local. And as we told you yesterday, Mayor Street is proposing measures so that works deemed important will undergo "appropriate review and consideration before they can be altered or removed from the city."

Which is all well and good for the local arts, but is it really the place of the government to dictate the rights of an individual or organization to dispose of their private property in the way they so choose? And if so, how is that even done? Will the city be forced to make an equal-or-greater counteroffer anytime an "important" work goes on the sale block (and who will foot that bill?) or will they simply tell the owner that they are not permitted to sell the object d'art to someone who lives outside the city? And what, pray tell, happens if said owner chooses to move outside the city limits? Does the work in question have to remain behind?

What do you think, Philly - is this proposed measure an important step in preserving our artistic and culturally heritage, or a potential threat to personal property rights? Or something else entirely?

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