A bit of background

“Back Seat Dodge ‘38,”

1964 sculpture by Edward

Kienholz, at LACMA

When L.A. County supervisors laid eyes on Kienholz’s sculpture of a drunken couple making out in a car -- a week before the opening of a 1966 exhibition at LACMA -- they labeled the artwork “revolting” and “blasphemous,” urged museum officials to remove it and threatened to cut their salaries when they refused. The show opened on time, with a long line of viewers and the door of the car closed. But guards stationed at “Back Seat Dodge ‘38” opened the door periodically, allowing patient visitors to peek inside.

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“Ardabil Carpet,”

1540 Persian textile, at LACMA

The young J. Paul Getty fell in love with this huge, sumptuous carpet in 1938, at an exhibition of Persian art in Paris, and declared it one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Dealer Joseph Duveen, who had loaned the carpet to the show from his personal collection, rejected Getty’s first offers to buy but eventually agreed. So where is the carpet now? At LACMA. Getty donated it in 1953, the year before he opened his own museum at his seaside ranch house in Pacific Palisades.

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“The Flight Into Egypt,”

circa 1544-45 painting by

Jacopo Bassano, at the Norton Simon Museum

Bassano’s Mannerist portrayal of the holy family in transit to Egypt was once the most valuable possession of a Benedictine community in the English village of Prinknash in Gloucestershire. The monks consigned the painting and several minor works to auction in 1969, hoping to raise about $100,000 to build a new monastery. Norton Simon bought the Bassano alone for $655,118. The sellers thought they were beneficiaries of a near miracle, but Simon knew he had landed a rare masterpiece at a bargain price.