Tag Archives: collector

Michael Steinhardt’s antiquities and the legal/moral divide

Posted on: December 9, 2021 by Alexander Herman

Collector Michael Steinhardt has been in the news this week, and not for the right reasons. On Monday, an agreement was announced whereby the New York DA’s Office would not prosecute Steinhardt for acquiring looted antiquities and, in exchange, Steinhardt would surrender 180 such artefacts to the DA, and these will soon (one hopes) be […]

Demand for return of bark etchings as new exhibition set to open

Posted on: March 13, 2015 by Alexander Herman

The British Museum has an upcoming exhibition of art and artefacts from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders entitled Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilization set to open on 23 April 2015. However, as one recent Guardian article makes clear, all is not well in relations between the museum and representatives of certain indigenous groups, namely the Dja Dja Wurrung people of central Victoria. This […]

The right of pre-emption and ‘The Wisdom of the Earth’

Posted on: February 25, 2015 by Alexander Herman

It is an iconic work by the great Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuși (pronounced, in true Romanian form, as ‘Brancoush’). It is a sculpture of a naked woman with her arms folded, her knees pulled close. It is entitled The Wisdom of the Earth. And now it is at the centre of yet another legal ‘dispute’ involving the Romanian state and […]

Recent authenticity dispute in Australia

Posted on: January 9, 2015 by Alexander Herman

Judgment was rendered last month by the Supreme Court of New South Wales in the case of McBride v Christie’s Australia. The case involved the auction sale of a painting by Australian modernist artist Albert Tucker in May 2000 to a barrister named Louise McBride for AUD $75,000. Later, in 2010, when McBride made arrangements to sell the […]