In 1975, Columbia University sold its 1658 Rembrandt painting, “Man with Arms Akimbo,” to a private collector for $1 million in a secret sale.

Fast-forward to today and the work is on the market for $47 million. It was offered at last year's TEFAF Maastricht, the world's most prestigious art fair.

Donated to Columbia in 1955 by Huntington Hartford II, the A&P supermarket heir, the Rembrandt was later revealed to have been bought in 1975 by J. Seward Johnson, son of the founder of the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company. For forty years the work went out of sight until his widow, Barbara Piasecka Johnson, sold it in 2009 to Las Vegas casino mogul Steven Wynn for $33 million, then a record price for Rembrandt.

The story brings to mind the uproar caused by Brandeis University in 2009 when it proposed the sale of masterworks from the Rose Art Museum to help cover university costs. The sales were furiously protested and the university's museum stayed intact.

When Columbia let go of its Rembrandt for a mere $1 million (about $4 million in today's dollars), it lost face with potential future donors to the university. And it lost out on having a cultural gem within its walls, a teaching tool, a masterpiece, not to mention tens of millions of dollars.