I have been looking through the thread and have a question. Can the hospital even sell the painting? Was the painting donated to the hospital and therefore, unable to sell it?
The reason I ask the question because when I worked at Cerner (Healthcare IT) there was a guy that I talked to that used to work at Truman Medical Center in Kansas City. He said that the hospital always had money issues to the point where they would delay paying their vendor's invoice past the payment date. It was a regular occurrence he said, but the hospital would eventually make good on the vendor's payment. However, because of the poor financials at the hospital, he always said that morale was low and the pay was poor. Hospital employees always complained that the hospital was spending millions of dollars on new gadgets, buildings, artwork, etc. and the employees continued to see poor pay. However, he said that the reason why the hospital would spend money of all of this other stuff is that they received it in the form of donations, and you don't turn down donation money. So for artwork, while it may have been commissioned for millions of dollars to be used at the hospital, the hospital could not sell it because of the terms set by the donor.
