Posted on: January 23, 2020 by Charlotte Dunn
President Emmanuel Macron originally promised to return 26 artefacts, currently held in the Musée du Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac in Paris, to Benin in 2018. These objects were taken as spoils from the Kingdom of Dahomey in 1892, as part of French colonial military action. Macron’s promise was made in response to the publication of the […]
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 […]
Posted on: December 10, 2019 by Adam Jomeen
Hot on the heels of its heavyweight (in every sense) Antony Gormley retrospective, London’s Royal Academy of Arts (RA) opened its second winter blockbuster – Lucian Freud: The Self-portraits – in late October to widespread critical acclaim. Filling the RA’s smaller Sackler Wing (yes – they have one too), the show unites paintings, prints, drawings […]
Posted on: November 7, 2019 by Alexander Herman
As those who have followed our courses (especially our IP Diploma) will know, a big fanfare is often made about the possibilities of the ‘quotation’ exception introduced into UK copyright law five years ago. For institutions that are often users of copyright-protected material, like museums, galleries, archives and libraries, the new exception came with a […]
Posted on: November 5, 2019 by Emily Gould
The IAL was delighted to be invited to share some thoughts on current issues in art and cultural heritage law with museum professionals from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden in the bi-annual Nordic Registrars’ Group meeting. The conference was held last month, on October 22nd and 23rd in the inspiring surroundings of ARoS Art Museum […]
Posted on: October 29, 2019 by Alexander Herman
The past month has been a busy one at the IAL. Not only did we run our annual Diploma in Law and Collections Management in London and a Saturday Study Forum, but we also provided a series of in-house training sessions in the UK and Qatar. We began developing these sessions over the last year […]
Posted on: October 25, 2019 by Charlotte Dunn
This week, the Louvre’s highly anticipated Leonardo da Vinci exhibition, commemorating the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death, opened its doors to the public. However, the process of negotiating the necessary loan agreements with Italy has been complex and controversial. Just days before opening, the loan of one of Da Vinci’s most famous works, the […]
Posted on: October 18, 2019 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes
As London is once more taken over by climate change protests, a recent news story from the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) serves as yet another (very timely) reminder that the arts and cultural sector can no longer remain isolated from the climate change debate, as we have previously discussed here. Just days before Extinction Rebellion’s […]
Posted on: October 4, 2019 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes
September was, as usual, an eventful month for the art world and the cultural heritage sector. After the lull of the summer months, there were a number of interesting events and developments that took place both in the UK and abroad. Today, we will be looking at two developments that were important from a collections […]
Posted on: September 9, 2019 by Emily Gould
What is the role of the museum in 21st century society? Not a simple question, certainly, but one which a standing committee of ICOM, the International Council of Museums, has been actively considering for almost a year in pursuit of a new way of defining a ‘museum’. The process was intended to have reached its […]