When Detroit declared bankruptcy on Thursday, it raised alarms over the future of one of the nation's finest art museums: the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The Detroit Free Press reported in May that Kevyn Orr, appointed in March by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder as Detroit's emergency manager, said he might sell works from the city-owned museum's collection to help avert a municipal financial crisis.

In June, the paper followed up by reporting that "creditors could pressure Orr to sell art or push the DIA to contribute revenue" to the city.

Whether Orr has the legal authority to sell works by Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne or Henri Matisse is unclear, but the museum felt the need Thursday to reiterate its position that the collection is held as a public trust, and cannot be sold.

It posted the following statement on its Facebook page:

“Like so many with deep roots in this city, the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is disappointed that the Emergency Manager determined it was necessary to file for bankruptcy.

“As a municipal bankruptcy of this size is unprecedented, the DIA will continue to carefully monitor the situation, fully confident that the emergency manager, the governor and the courts will act in the best interest of the City, the public and the museum.

“We remain committed to our position that the Detroit Institute of Arts and the City of Detroit hold the DIA’s collection in trust for the public and we stand by our charge to preserve and protect the cultural heritage of all Michigan residents.”

Masterpieces in the city-owned collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts, such as this self-portrait by James McNeill Whistler, are national treasures.

The sale of works from the Detroit museum wouldn't directly affect other art museums, including the privately owned Cleveland Museum of Art.

But Cleveland museum Director David Franklin said last week he was worried about a rising tendency among museum boards of trustees and foreign governments to view artworks as assets to be monetized in times of economic stress.

He drew a comparison between the debate over the future of the Detroit museum and the decision by the government of Sicily to cancel a traveling exhibition of antiquities scheduled to open in Cleveland in September because the absence of the artworks was reportedly damaging the island's tourism economy.

Sicily has since asked the museum to pay a publicly unspecified sum to guarantee that the show will occur. Negotiations over the show have not yet been resolved.

How much money could be at stake in Detroit if the museum had to sell out? The Detroit Free Press

reported in May that even according to a low estimate, the collection could raise “several billion dollars” to help cover about $15 billion in municipal debt.

The newspaper quoted donor Alfred Taubman as saying that “it would be a crime” to sell any of the DIA’s collection to satisfy city creditors.

“I’m sure Mr. Orr, once he thinks about it, will certainly not choose that as one of the assets,” Taubman told the Free Press. “It’s not just an asset of Detroit. It’s an asset of the country.”

Concern about whether Orr could force the sale of treasures from the museum ricocheted around the Internet immediately late Thursday afternoon.

Inside the galleries at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

CNN reported that the DIA could raise a half million dollars merely by selling the original Howdy Doody marionette, part of the museum's collection.

Huffington Post, meanwhile, headlined a slideshow of DIA masterpieces on its website as follows: "Detroit Could Auction off Priceless art."

The Economist set the debate of the museum's future in stark terms in June, pointing out that the museum was strongly supported by suburban residents in three southeastern Michigan counties who voted last year to tax themselves to help pay the museum's operating expenses.

The magazine reported that in the city, however,

“many residents will grasp at anything that means their pensions might be paid, or the streetlights might start working again."

The treasures at the Detroit museum include Diego Rivera’s spectacular “Detroit Industry” frescoes, Frederic Edwin Church’s panorama of the sun setting through the ash plume of an erupting volcano in South America, and James McNeill Whistler’s “Falling Rocket,” which sparked a famous 19th-century libel lawsuit by the artist against the critic John Ruskin.

Until now, it has been unthinkable that such works could be sold. Detroit's bankruptcy, at least according to initial reports, raises the possibility anew.