Tag Archives: case

A new take on cultural heritage at the ICJ – Armenia v. Azerbaijan

Posted on: February 17, 2022 by Alexander Herman

It’s rare that an international court confronts cultural heritage issues. But that’s just what happened two months ago. On 7 December, an important Order came down from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague that included consideration of, amongst other matters, the importance of tangible cultural heritage to minority populations in times of […]

Year in review: recap on 2019

Posted on: December 26, 2019 by Alexander Herman

If nothing else, the end of a calendar year offers the chance to step back and review the larger developments in a particular area or field. This is certainly true about the world of art and cultural heritage law where it can often be hard to see the forest for the trees. So many legal […]

Ticking Away: Christian Marclay’s The Clock and Copyright Law

Posted on: September 12, 2018 by Alexander Herman

A stern-looking man with a gun turns towards a metallic device mounted on the wall. He places one hand on the device’s handle and checks his watch. It is 12.04. Next we see an analogue clock hanging above a presenter reading the BBC radio news into a microphone. The time on the clock reads 12.05. […]

The Fatimid jar dispute and the 1970 UNESCO Convention

Posted on: July 9, 2018 by Alexander Herman

An interesting case came down last month from the High Court in London in the matter of Jeddi v Sotheby’s. The case was brought by an Iranian antiquities dealer named Ali Jeddi against Sotheby’s UK for refusing to return his property, a 10th century Fatimid jar made of translucent quartz and finely decorated with images of […]

The portrait of Greta Moll, the National Gallery and ‘quintessentially’ British statements

Posted on: January 16, 2018 by Hélène Deslauriers

Oskar and Greta Moll were two German students of Henri Matisse. In 1908, they purchased a portrait of Greta painted by the Master himself (the Portrait). Later, having survived the Second World War but concerned of the impeding partition of Germany, they decided to move to Wales in 1946. In preparation for the move, Greta […]

Two recent antiquities cases in the US

Posted on: July 7, 2017 by Alexander Herman

A warning for museums? There have been two interesting recent developments relating to antiquities: one regarding allegedly looted antiquities, the other regarding artefacts at the centre of a legal storm that has been brewing for some 15 years; both involve the United States of America. The first is the action brought by US District Attorneys […]

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 […]

No more personal copying… of artworks?

Posted on: July 21, 2015 by Alexander Herman

There was an interesting development last week in the area of copyright exceptions in the UK. A judge of the High Court quashed (i.e. nullified or rendered inoperable) the exception introduced by the Government last October through the Personal Copies for Private Use Regulations 2014. This is quite something. The courts, through judicial review, are overturning a governmental mechanism which had allowed […]

Big Eyes: An IP perspective?

Posted on: January 6, 2015 by Alexander Herman

The new Tim Burton film, Big Eyes, was released over the holidays. It tells the story of American painter Margaret Keane (née Hawkins), whose works for the most part depicted young waif-like girls with enlarged, often tearful, eyes. Throughout the 1960s, as the paintings became increasingly popular, Margaret’s husband, Walter, would pass them off as his own. The paintings […]

Norman Palmer QC CBE is asked to comment on a national news channel on the discovery of ‘Treasure Trove’ of Nazi-Confiscated Art Works in Munich

Posted on: November 7, 2013 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper

  The extraordinary revelation this week of the find more than two years ago in a flat in Munich of a huge number of art works gives rise to many questions, both legal and evidential, and raises many challenges for the authorities in Germany that now have possession of the artworks in question. Norman Palmer QC […]