The crisis in US university funding has claimed another victim.
Last month it was Chicago's DePaul University coming under fire, now it is the University of Pennsylvania.
DePaul was criticized after announcing it was closing its art museum as it wrestled with a $27.4 million budget cut.
Things are not that bad yet at Penn but it has still attracted ire after deciding to sell a 1891 painting by Ottoman artist Osman Hamdi Bey to raise much-needed funds.
The painting, Cami Kapisinda (At the Mosque Door), was bought from the artist directly in 1895 and is being sold at Bonhams in London on Wednesday where it is expected to fetch $4 million.
The university says the money will be spent on the museum collection's long-term care, but that has not stopped it from being criticized with Christiane Gruber, professor of Islamic art at the University of Michigan, telling ARTnews it showed "a lack of public scrutiny and accountability".