When it was announced that Leonard A. Lauder would be gifting his Cubist art collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013, the news was met with immediate interest throughout the entire art world. His collection featured prominent artworks by many masters of Cubism as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, and Fernand Léger.
However, the significance of the gift lay not so much in monetary value and prestige, but more in the aspect of public accessibility. What was once the property of one collector became the possession of one of the world's biggest museums, open to anyone interested. As the Met claimed back then, the collection is one of the most impressive ever assembled in private hands.
