Category Archives: Legislation

From Mapplethorpe to Iowa, through New Hampshire and California: US rules on obscenity and nudity in art

Posted on: May 29, 2019 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes

Even though there is currently an ongoing lawsuit in Iowa to determine what materials containing nudity prisoners should be granted access to, this is a debate that actually began much earlier. Our story begins in New Hampshire in 1942, when a ground-breaking precedent was set: the freedom of expression right granted by the constitution of […]

Latest Art Antiquity & Law issue

Posted on: May 21, 2019 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes

The brand new issue of IAL’s Art Antiquity & Law quarterly journal is hot off the press and is now available in print and online via the Hein portal. This year’s first issue brings an array of articles, conference reports and a book review. Maja Dehouck discusses the regulation of illicit trafficking of cultural property […]

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, […]

Revising the definition of ‘treasure’

Posted on: May 1, 2019 by Geoffrey Bennett

Assiduous followers of the media, and possibly even those with no interest at all, may have noticed that Her Majesty’s Government has in recent months been slightly preoccupied with European legal perspectives. It therefore came as a welcome surprise that in February 2019 the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced a long-awaited […]

The EU’s parting gift to the UK art market?

Posted on: April 1, 2019 by Emily Gould

On 17th April 2019, shortly after the original date set for the UK’s exit from the European Union, the European Parliament and Council adopted the Regulation on the import of cultural goods, a rather sweeping measure designed to control the import into EU Member States of certain items of cultural property. The legislation is aimed […]

Monetising the past – some thoughts on the sale of archaeological artefacts

Posted on: March 4, 2019 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds

Laws and guidance notes are rarely retrospective as this would go against fairness and justice. As regards laws such as the Treasure Act 1996 and guidance notes dealing with human remains and archaeological excavation, however, many archaeologists, Anglo-Saxon specialists and museum curators probably wish that they could be. Hansons Auctioneers recently announced it would be […]

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 […]

Planning for the unthinkable: Protecting cultural assets in extremis

Posted on: December 3, 2018 by Emily Gould

It barely seems possible that we are fast approaching the first anniversary of the UK’s ratification of the Hague Convention 1954. 12th December 2017 marked the entry into force of the Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Act 2017, which saw the UK, finally, making a formal commitment to adhere to the Convention’s obligations for the protection […]

Copyright in AI works – what can we learn from our forebears?

Posted on: November 14, 2018 by Emily Gould

  Readers of this blog will have seen the post last week about Portrait of Edmond de Belamy, a piece of computer generated art created by the Obvious Collective through Artificial Intelligence, which recently sold at auction for USD 432,500. Amongst the challenges posed by AI technology for copyright law, is the question of how […]

Don’t live in an ivory tower: here’s the latest on the UK ivory ban

Posted on: April 13, 2018 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes

A few months ago we discussed here the restrictions on the ivory trade in the UK and the changes that were brewing following a wide-reaching public consultation issued by the British government. As a result, the ivory trade in the UK is virtually banned, apart from five stringently-regulated exceptions. Following over 70,000 responses, it is […]