What Exactly Is A “Private” Museum, Anyway?

In a country full of museums, however, the purpose of private museums — a broadly defined type of institution based on a single collector’s vision — isn’t always clear — besides, that is, giving an uber-wealthy art collector a glitzy vanity project and perhaps a tax write-off. What such museums offer, says one expert, is an opportunity to see art that might otherwise be hanging in a wealthy home or stuck in storage.