Pittsburgh Bets A Renoir On Super Bowl Victory

Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy Carnegie Museum of Art Courtesy Carnegie Museum of Art

Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy Milwaukee Museum of Art Courtesy Milwaukee Museum of Art

A Few Strange Bets The Super Bowl is rife with oddball things to bet on. Here are a few odds from Bodog.com as of 2/6. Note that most of these bets are only legal online and/or overseas. Odds that it will take Christina Aguilera less than 1 minute and 54 seconds to sing the National Anthem: 3/2 Odds that Green Bay Packer Aaron Rodgers' girlfriend, Jessica Szohr, will be shown on Fox TV before Pittsburgh Steeler Ben Roethlisberger's fiancée, Ashley Harlan: 5/7 Odds that a punt will hit the scoreboard: 6/1 Odds that halftime performer Fergie will wear shorts: 5/2 Odds that FOX TV will mention Brett Favre more than 2.5 times during the game: 10/23 Odds the Gatorade shower for the winning coach will be blue: 10/1 Odds the MVP of the game will thank their family first: 13/2

Among the stranger bets being waged on Super Bowl Sunday is whether Fergie will wear shorts during the halftime show. Another bets on the color of the winner's Gatorade dump.

Those bets aren't strictly legal in most states, but there's nothing to stop a few hometown art museums from making a friendly wager.

The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh has bet a Renoir that the Steelers will win Sunday. The Milwaukee Art Museum took that bet — and put up a rare Caillebotte in return.

"Our docents were extremely upset," Milwaukee Art Museum Director Daniel Keegan tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer. "They said, 'How could you possibly think of giving up the Caillebotte?' I said, 'That's the point — we have no intention of giving it up.'"

Should the Steelers lose to the Packers, Milwaukee's prize will be one of Pierre Auguste Renoir's paintings of bathers. Lynn Zelevansky, director of the Carnegie Art Museum, describes Bathers With Crab as "a late Renoir, which is the Renoir that everybody loves — all those lovely pink maidens."

Should the Packers lose, however, the Carnegie Museum gets Gustave Caillebotte's Boating on the Yerres. Either way, the winning city will keep the borrowed painting for just a few months before returning it to the loser. Until then, Keegan says, "We're going to have a great painting from a great museum in Milwaukee."

"We feel exactly the same way," Zelevansky says. "We have a very strong Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection — but we don't have Caillebotte. I'm looking forward to bringing Caillebotte to the museum."