I hesitate to begin with the price, but the museum has never paid that much for anything.

While he declined to say how much the museum finally paid, art experts said it was about $800,000.

The modern museum, he said later, "must pay greater attention to its educational responsibility, especially to the young".

But for eight years now the museum has been paying its bills.

The museum paid only $50 million, although the sellers had originally asked for a much higher figure.

The French museum paid $10.9 million, two and a half times the estimate, $4.1 million.

The museum paid $354,500, more than double the $150,000 high estimate.

The museum paid about $1.2 million for the sculpture, which is a small, abstract painted wood head.

The museum pays homage to the area in various ways.

And the price was the highest the museum had ever paid.