Yes, a museum director is fundamentally a tax guy. They’re not paying for the work that gets “donated,” so a museum director is a negotiable third party who is highly willing to appraise works at values the Donor suggests.

The incentive for the Museum to inflate the value of the work that gets donated to them is inflating the supposed value of their holdings. The incentive for the Donor is tax evasion.

OH WAIT I meant “tax avoidance.”