ING Groep NV, the biggest Dutch financial-services company that is selling art for the first time since it started its collection in 1974, will keep buying works to maintain the quality.

ING, the Amsterdam-based company that got a 10 billion euro ($14 billion) lifeline from the Dutch government in October, is selling about 10 percent of its 25,000-piece collection of contemporary art, which includes works by Karel Appel, Michael Raedecker and Diego Rivera and is on display in 1,300 locations. The average value of the items, mostly graphics, that are up for sale is estimated at 200 euros apiece.

“We’re still expanding the collection,” Annabelle Birnie, head of ING Art Collection, said in an interview on Jan. 7. “A good collection needs to be maintained and that’s also endorsed. We, of course, take into account ING’s current financial situation” and buy new works of art “modestly.”

ING posted a 478 million-euro loss for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2008, the first since the company was created 18 years ago. ING, which traces its roots to 1743, wrote down the value of stocks, bonds, Alt-A and subprime mortgages and assets related to the bankruptcy of New York-based Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

The art collection of ING, which was created in the 1991 merger of Nationale-Nederlanden and NMB Postbank Group, started at NMB, Birnie said. “It’s not an investment in the financial sense, but an investment in the emotional sense and also meant to give an impulse to the art world as it is today,” she said.

‘Nice Amount’

ING is selling 50 works of art every week via the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage on EBay Inc.’s Internet auction Web site. “I’ve seen the first results and they look positive,” Birnie said. “We’ll be able to transfer a nice amount” to ING Chances for Children, a social-development program that focuses on education for children and that the United Nations Children’s Fund, known as Unicef, helped set up.

Birnie declined to comment on the value of ING’s art collection and on her budget.

Deutsche Bank AG, Germany’s biggest bank, has the world’s largest corporate art collection, which contains about 50,000 works and focuses on works on paper by new artists.

“There are enough talented young artists and if you know how to find them you can also buy interesting art with a modest budget,” said Birnie, who added that she recently enjoyed an exhibition by Francien Krieg from The Hague.