A court hearing to determine the fate of the multibillion-dollar art collection owned by the late Dr. Albert C. Barnes came to a swift conclusion in Montgomery County Orphans’ Court four days after it began -- without a final ruling.

At issue in the case was the recommendation that Barnes’ 1951 will be overturned in an attempt to reinvigorate his art gallery’s sagging finances. Barnes’ will demands that his phenomenal collection -- which includes original Renoirs, Matisses and Monets -- must remain on display in suburban Lower Merion in perpetuity and that it be used primarily to enhance art education.

Based on the testimony of nine witnesses, Judge Stanley Ott heard what was characterized by many who attended as a compelling argument on behalf of the Barnes Foundation trustees that favors relocating the collection, estimated at up to $70 billion, to a more accessible site in Center City. That proposal has been strongly buoyed by three philanthropic organizations offering to inject $150 million into the struggling foundation, with the caveat that their hefty support would be made available only if the collection took up residence somewhere along Benjamin Franklin Parkway, near the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Arguments against dismantling Barnes’ will in order to relocate the art collection were made only by two Barnes Foundation art students. They insisted that the donor’s indenture be honored in every aspect; most particularly, his wishes that Foundation students retain unfettered access to the handpicked collection.

While the two proposals have been proffered as the only viable solutions for the famous art gallery, Ott raised another possible alternative based on a plan submitted by art dealer James Maroney Jr.

The plan, which Maroney considers a form of legal "tenancy in common," appears relatively simple: A selected number of Barnes’ paintings, not currently on display, would be sold to interested art collectors for the duration of the buyers’ lifetimes, but returned to the Barnes Foundation upon their deaths. Maroney said that the novel plan would raise money while imposing less "damage to Dr. Barnes’ vision than certain other proposals … ."

In an amicus "friend of the court" brief -- a written submission to the court, either requested or volunteered, relating to a pending matter -- presented to Ott, Maroney writes, "If … the money to operate Albert Barnes’s [sic] Foundation were raised without permanent prejudice to his Indenture, the art collection could survive just as and where he intended. … The plan proposes, in a startling departure from art industry convention, that the foundation would enter into a Tenancy in Common with art collectors by offering for sale at public auction partial, undivided interests … to selected paintings in the collection while retaining the residual fee interests in them. The purchaser … would acquire a [portion] of the painting for the remainder of his or her life but would also agree that upon his or her death, the ... interest so owned would be bequeathed back to the Foundation."

Maroney, a Vermont resident who once worked at Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses in New York City, has been buying and selling paintings since 1976. Having submitted his own solution for the Barnes, he traveled here to attend part of the hearing. Maroney says he was seated in the courtroom when Ott floated his idea to Barnes Foundation Executive Director Kimberly Camp during her cross-examination. He says that he offered his idea to the foundation a few years ago, but it was rejected. Maroney says that Camp’s response to the judge was still unfavorable.

"It’s true that no museum has ever done this. No one has ever sold a real property interest in a picture without conveying the whole thing," Maroney says. "But this seems to be a perfect solution."

Camp would not comment on Maroney’s proposal but Barnes Foundation attorney Carl Solano, who represented the organization in court, views the idea as unacceptable.

"I think that the concept is ill-advised -- in the extreme," he says. "First of all, it requires the sale of paintings and Barnes insisted on no sales. Secondly, it involves removal of the paintings from the foundation for the lifetime of the buyer, making them no longer available to the students or to members of the public. It also constitutes removing a portion of the Barnes ensemble, thereby destroying a major display. And, it would place the art outside the foundation and put it in the hands of a third party, relinquishing control of the painting in terms of security and maintenance.