Confusion abounds over stewardship

To the Editor:

Peter Frumkin’s opinion piece (“Museum’s $10-Million Lesson: Stewardship Matters,” August 8) is right to focus on the importance of stewardship but unfortunately is flawed by a basic misunderstanding of what stewardship is.

The ultimate purpose of stewardship in a museum is not to preserve objects for their own sakes but to serve public education by use of those objects. Thus the first duties of such stewardship are to preserve and protect the object via climate control, security, etc.; and to make it accessible for viewing.

There are no indications that there were problems in either of these areas in the case he cites. (Mr. Frumkin confuses accessibility with public exhibition — and very few, if any, museums can publicly exhibit more than a small fraction of their collection at any one time.)

In fact, if the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum had not done these things, the visiting museum director would not have been able to make a new attribution of the drawing in question to Michelangelo.

And museums always will, and must, be reattributing objects, since such attribution is frequently a judgment call, especially where the object is unsigned, and even specialists often differ.

Yes, stewardship is one of the key elements of the museum calling. But Mr. Frumkin’s well-intentioned critique misses the essence of it, and also neglects to mention that taking care of the essence of stewardship makes possible the kind of self-correction in attribution that we see here.

Edward H. Able
President and CEO
American Association of Museums
Washington, D.C.