The Pointless Super Bowl Bets Just Went Artsy

The governors of the respective states or the mayors of the participating cities haven’t yet gotten a chance to bandy wagers over the outcome of Super Bowl 44, but a New Orleans and an Indianapolis art museum are already locked in vicious crossfire over which loaned objet d’art they are willing to put up for the big game.↵↵The first proposed bets were made early in the week. For Indy, it was an Ingrid Calame painting, which struck New Orleans Museum of Art director E. John Bullard as less than worthy for an event of this magnitude:↵

↵↵⇥“[Indianapolis Museum of Art director] Max Anderson must not really believe the Colts can beat the Saints in the Super Bowl. Otherwise why would he bet such an insignificant work as the Ingrid Calame painting? Let’s up the ante. The New Orleans Museum of Art will bet the three-month loan of its $4 million Renoir painting, Seamstress at Window, circa 1908, which is currently in the big Renoir exhibition in Paris. What will Max wager of equal importance? Go Saints!”↵↵↵Eaux snap!↵

↵↵Sufficiently shamed, the stakes continued to rise into the early morning. The Indianapolis museum responded by adding a Jean-Valentine Morel jeweled cup. Bullard dismissed it as a Victorian bauble, which only served to touch off an aesthetic back-and-forth that is still ongoing. By kickoff, we might have an Old Master giving points.↵

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