Mütter Museum display cases sold at the Resource Exchange

If you’ve been to the Mütter Museum, you know its signature 19th-century-style cabinets that display a collection of rare anatomical specimens and historical medical equipment. The museum recently donated five of those custom cases to the Resource Exchange, a nonprofit resale shop in Norris Square, prompting organizers with Protect the Mütter to question if the museum properly disposed of the items.

Protect the Mütter is a group of museum followers who organized after learning about the museum’s recent changes under executive director Kate Quinn, including canceling a planned forensic exhibit over the use of human remains and removing most of its online presence for an ethical review. Quinn serves as a board member of the Resource Exchange.

The College of Physicians, the museum’s parent organization, and the Mütter Museum confirmed in a statement to The Inquirer on Thursday that Quinn donated the cases to the Resource Exchange. The shop is a small nonprofit dedicated to recycling, reusing, and conserving materials that otherwise would be thrown away. Many items go to local artists, theater or film productions, and public art installations.

Local furniture maker Scott Kip identified the cases in a video the shop posted on Instagram, advertising them for $200-$500 and writing that they came from a prestigious museum. The shop keeps information about its donors anonymous.

Around 2011, curator Anna Dhody had found height-adjustable tables with iron bases in the museum’s building and commissioned Kip to create mahogany and glass cases on top. He recalls seeing them in a Civil War exhibit and holding other displays since then. Kip, who customized and repaired furniture for the museum for more than a decade, said it was “disheartening” to see his pieces for sale and no longer part of the museum.

Though he doesn’t remember how much the Mütter paid him for all five cases, he estimates that one case would be valued at $1,000 or more today. He’s concerned that the museum off-loading these items indicates a drastic shift.

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“I think it pays to be careful before things are changed too much. Like, what are the remarkable things in the city? They’re often things that have been preserved,” said Kip, who also works to maintain the historic Wanamaker Organ.

After seeing Kip’s display cases for sale, members of Protect the Mütter have raised concerns about improper “deaccessioning,” a museum term that refers to the process of removing items from a collection. (Under the International Council of Museums, objects from a collection are subject to deaccessioning guidelines.)

Members claim that the iron bases — which the Resource Exchange described as typewriter bases, but Kip and the organizers believe may be antique optometrist tables — are part of the Mütter’s collection and were not appropriately removed.

The College of Physicians and the Mütter Museum’s statement refuted these claims. The cases, they said, “were never intended to be part of the Museum’s permanent display, nor were they (or any of their parts) ever accessioned by the Museum.”

The cases had been placed in a storage unit in 2018, before Quinn joined, and staff intended to remove them “at some point,” the statement said. The college and the museum wrote that Quinn donated the cases and other materials several weeks ago hoping they’d be reused, “instead of removing them to a landfill.”

Protect the Mütter members have pointed to Quinn’s relationship with the Resource Exchange as a potentially unethical conflict of interest. The college and the museum’s statement called these allegations “ludicrous, unfair, deliberately hurtful, and completely unsupported by the facts.”

The Resource Exchange sold the final case on Thursday for $350.

This story has been updated to include a statement from the College of Physicians and the Mütter Museum. It has also been updated to reflect that the Resource Exchange has sold all five cases.