Category Archives: Art Transactions

Appeal for Restitution of Nazi-Plundered Pissarro Centers on Application of Spanish versus U.S. Law

Posted on: December 24, 2019 by Stephanie Drawdy

A buyer who purchases stolen property does not receive good title – depending on the jurisdiction. The Cassirer family has learned this lesson all too well after nearly two decades attempting to reclaim a Nazi-looted painting by Impressionist Master Camille Pissarro. Earlier this year, a U.S. federal court in California awarded the Pissarro to a […]

Japanese Museum claims title to the Reynolds painting stolen in UK

Posted on: October 1, 2019 by Makoto Shimada

According to recent articles in the Antiques Trade Gazette, Art Newspaper and several other English papers, a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds stolen in the UK has ended up in Japan at the collection of the Fuji Tokyo Art Museum (“the Museum”). The Museum claims that it purchased the work with valid title. Facts In […]

Dispute over the Isleworth Mona Lisa goes to Italian courtrooms

Posted on: September 25, 2019 by Eleonora Chielli

The Court of Florence is dealing with a case involving the ‘Isleworth Mona Lisa’, a painting attributed to Leonardo, though with some uncertainty. Whilst the question of attribution is not the focus of this post, it should be noted that following a debate lasting for more than a century about the attribution of this painting, […]

To deal or not to deal: provenance and morality in recent sale at Christie’s

Posted on: July 26, 2019 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes

Earlier this month, controversy surrounded one particular lot in the ‘The Exceptional Sale’ at Christie’s in London. The object of the controversy was ‘An Egyptian Brown Quartzite Head of the God Amen with the features of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen’, dated to the Reign of Tutankhamen, c. 1333-1323 BC, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty. The lot (no. 110) […]

U.S. Court of Appeals Finds The Met is Rightful Owner of Picasso’s The Actor

Posted on: July 12, 2019 by Stephanie Drawdy

The great-grand niece of a Jewish couple from Cologne, the Leffmanns, has again received an adverse ruling in a New York federal case in which she seeks possession of a painting sold by the Leffmanns after Nazi-rule necessitated their departure from Germany. In its June 26, 2019 decision, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld […]

Changes to the Artist’s Resale Right regime in Italy

Posted on: July 10, 2019 by Eleonora Chielli

Eleonora Chielli is a partner at Chielli Law Firm, member of the Bar Association in Venice and lecturer in Art Law at Istituto Europeo di Design. The Guidelines issued on 1 February 2019 clarified the way in which SIAE (Società Italiana degli Autori ed Editori), the Italian equivalent to DACS, who is entitled to collect […]

New Money Laundering Directive – plans for the UK

Posted on: June 17, 2019 by Emily Gould

Readers may recall our post a few months ago focused on the problem of money laundering in the art trade, and in particular, the adoption by the European Parliament of the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5MLD), to be implemented by Member States by 10th January 2020. In anticipation of the implementation in the UK, the Government, […]

Ownership of Nazi-Plundered Pissarro Goes to Spanish Foundation

Posted on: May 14, 2019 by Stephanie Drawdy

It’s a rainy winter day in Paris, 1897. A distinguished gentleman is standing at his easel with the curtains drawn, his eyes surveying the street below. As a painter myself, I like to imagine the excitement the Impressionist Master Camille Pissarro felt as he envisioned the composition of the scene that would become Rue Saint-Honoré, Après-midi, […]

Is it ‘buyer beware’ or must dealers play fair?

Posted on: March 1, 2019 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes

As the art world gears up for another round of TEFAF to take place next month in Maastricht, we are faced with the unfortunate outcome involving the sale of two Old Master paintings during last year’s fair. The paintings, sold by the renowned London-based gallery Richard Green, were a river landscape by Jan Brueghel the […]

Tightening the screws against money laundering – will the art world be hung out to dry?

Posted on: February 4, 2019 by Emily Gould

It is rare that the somewhat dry and complex topic of anti-money laundering regulation hits the headlines in the art world. Introduce an A-list celebrity and a couple of paintings by names such as Basquiat and Picasso, however, and the stakes are raised. In June 2017 the online forum artnet news reported on an investigation […]