NY Times delves into DAM's basement

The New York Times looked at undiscovered gems in storage at the Denver Art Museum and other cultural and scientific institutions.

Excerpt:

"You never know what you are going to discover," said Timothy J. Standring, a curator at the Denver Art Museum. He speaks from experience. As part of a process he calls "spring cleaning," Mr. Standring routinely inspects art that might not have been seen in decades.

At first, he hunts for clunkers -- candidates for deacquisition (museum-speak for getting rid of something). But in 2007, he found a keeper in a bin: a filthy oil painting of a Venice piazza in a battered frame. He suspected that the painting, which was attributed to a student of the Italian landscape painter known as Canaletto, might be by the celebrated teacher himself.

Read the rest here.