Tag Archives: artwork

Update on the US – China Trade War and its implications to the art world

Posted on: September 23, 2018 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes

In a welcome development, it has been reported by the Art Newspaper earlier this week that Chinese art and antiques will no longer be subject to the increased tariffs we had discussed here in the ongoing trade war between the US and China. This is the result – at least in part – of the […]

The US – China Trade War… and why it matters for the art world

Posted on: September 6, 2018 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes

In the latest of a series of controversial decisions for which the Trump administration has become renowned, the US Government has raised the stakes in the ongoing trade war with China with the result that 25% tariffs are now being applied on what is reported to be $16bn worth of imports on both sides. At […]

NGC reneges on plan to sell Chagall

Posted on: April 27, 2018 by Alexander Herman

The National Gallery of Canada, as reported earlier, had plans to sell one of its two major works by Marc Chagall, La Tour Eiffel, at auction at Christies in New York on 15 May, with an estimate of $6 million to $ 9 million. This led to much uproar in the Canadian press and amongst the […]

The Spies-Ernst case: Art experts in France can breathe a sigh of relief

Posted on: January 27, 2016 by Judith Bouchardeau and Mathilde Roellinger

The discovery of the art forgery scandal perpetrated by Wolfang Beltracchi has given rise to a number of legal proceedings. The recent decision of the Court of Appeal of Versailles, involving art expert Werner Spies and a painting attributed to Max Ernst, is among them. The facts are as follows. At the 2004 Paris Biennale […]

Guess who’s back?

Posted on: October 12, 2015 by Alexander Herman

Goya’s Marquesa de Santa Cruz is back in London. Those with long memories will know that this painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya had been taken out of Spain in the mid 1980s and brought to auction at Christie’s in London, only to incur the ire of the Spanish government. The work had left Spain in 1983 accompanied by forged […]

Glasgow to compensate heirs of Nazi victim

Posted on: October 9, 2015 by Alexander Herman

Following on from my last post about two recent reports from the UK’s Spoliation Advisory Panel (SAP) regarding Nazi-looted art in British public collections, it was reported this summer that Glasgow City Council has followed an earlier SAP recommendation in relation to a 16th century tapestry fragment held at the city’s Burrell Collection. The November 2014 report recommended that an ex gratia payment (literally meaning […]

Two important recommendations on Nazi-era loot

Posted on: September 24, 2015 by Alexander Herman

The Spoliation Advisory Panel, the UK body that hears disputes relating to Nazi-looted art held in national collections, has delivered two important reports this month. The first is a follow-up on an earlier 2014 recommendation that the Tate return a Constable painting, ‘Beaching a Boat, Brighton’, to the descendants of the painting’s original owner, Baron Hatvany of Hungary. The Baron had […]

Art and Limitation Periods

Posted on: August 19, 2015 by Alexander Herman

A painting was stolen in 1991. It was a work referred to as Girl in Sunlight by Australian impressionist Rupert Bunny (see below). It was owned by James Watt from Melbourne. Watt tried to recover the painting, but there was nothing he could do. He died in 1993. In May 2010 the painting was seized by the […]

The gift vs. loan problem for museums

Posted on: August 14, 2015 by Alexander Herman

Having finished the IAL refresher course in Melbourne this week (with the full Diploma in Law and Collections Management course starting next Monday), it has become clear yet again the difficulties which museums face when dealing with certain objects in their collections. The difficulties stem from an uncertainty as to whether an object has been given (‘gifted’ or donated) to […]

Artworks now considered depreciable assets in Japan

Posted on: March 25, 2015 by Makoto Shimada

Over the last couple of months, Japanese companies have been flocking to galleries to purchase inexpensive artworks. This trend is a result of a significant governmental change in relation to taxation policy which was adopted from January 2015. According to the newly amended Corporate and Income Tax Law Interpretive Regulations announced by the National Tax […]