PARIS — In the early rush to turn crowd-funding online into a new source of public revenue to buy everything from medieval ivory statues in France to a gallery for dinosaur bones in Canada there’s a cautionary tale: It doesn’t always work.
The Louvre is nearing the end of what appears to be its third successful online fundraising campaign to raise €800,000, or $1.06 million, toward the €2.6 million purchase of two delicate 13th-century statues that complete a carved set of “The Descent From the Cross” that were believed to be lost or destroyed. Already the museum has raised more than 60 percent, or almost €500,000, and has set a deadline of Jan. 31 in its call to save a national treasure from being sold outside France.
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