Tag Archives: dispute

Munich Regional Court Makes Decision on Joint Authorship of “Paris Bar” Works

Posted on: November 13, 2023 by Adrienne Bauer

The Paris Bar in Berlin’s Kantstraße is a traditional meeting place for the arts and culture scene of the German capital and a true institution. Three paintings depicting this very bar have now become the subject of an interesting copyright decision by the Munich Regional Court. Specifically, it concerns the works “Paris Bar (Version 1-3)” […]

Book Launch for New Publication on Parthenon Marbles Dispute by IAL Director

Posted on: October 18, 2023 by Ephraim Tan

The dispute over the Parthenon (or Elgin) Marbles is known to many. Yet, the issues in dispute have often been clouded by rhetoric and the parties’ entrenched positions. What are the legalities which surround the Marbles’ removal from Athens in the first years of the 19th century? What is the ethical situation of their continued […]

Andy Warhol decision at US Supreme Court: a whimper, not a bang

Posted on: May 22, 2023 by Alexander Herman

Pity the Andy Warhol Foundation. Not only did the Foundation have to close its associated authentication board in 2012, but now it has lost what was probably the most high-profile artistic copyright lawsuit of a generation. Although Warhol’s artworks and his brand continue to enjoy high levels of popularity and financial success, the Foundation has […]

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 […]

Legal settlement reached between Getty and Armenian Church

Posted on: September 22, 2015 by Alexander Herman

An important legal settlement has been reached between the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the American branch of an Armenian Church. The dispute, which had dragged on for a number of years, involved eight illustrated manuscript pages that had once been part of the Zeyt’un Gospels but which had been separated from the rest of the […]

A Spanish Tug-of-War

Posted on: May 8, 2015 by Alexander Herman

An interesting recent article in the New York Times recounts the struggle between two Spanish Museums over the right to display four paintings, including two masterpieces of European art (Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights and Rogier van der Weyden’s Descent from the Cross). The works have been held at the Prado Museum in Madrid since being sent […]

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 […]

Settlement in Beaverbrook Art Dispute

Posted on: April 14, 2014 by Alexander Herman

It was recently revealed that a final settlement had been reached in the decade-long Beaverbrook art saga. The dispute involved over 200 works that had once belonged to Max Aitken, aka Lord Beaverbrook, the Canadian-born London-based newspaper magnate. Before he died in 1964, Beaverbrook had founded an art gallery in his home province of New […]