ABSTRACT
Josephine Bachman had learned of Albert Barnes’s accident on returning from a family vacation. Most of the money was in municipal bonds, and after his widow’s death, Barnes directed that the residuary estate also go to the Foundation. Penn’s David Robb, the art historian rejected by Barnes for any role in the future of the Foundation, speculated in a letter to Fiske Kimball whether “a taxpayer’s suit could be brought” to settle “once and for all” if the gallery could be forced open. The logic of the tax argument was dubious since Barnes paid income taxes while accumulating the fortune he used to buy his pictures. Only Laura Barnes, who testified voluntarily, seemed to gain the deputy attorney general’s respect. Brian L. Roberts objected that “even if every one” of the pictures were fake, “there would be nothing the Barnes Foundation could do about it” since the terms of the Indenture called for the collection to remain intact.
