Posted on: February 13, 2020 by Charlotte Dunn
An intriguing series of events has led the US Government to commence court action over a collection of objects associated with Alan Turing, the British mathematician. Alan Turing is famous for his involvement in breaking the German Enigma code during WW2 and for his contribution to the field of computer science. This case raises questions […]
Posted on: November 3, 2017 by Hélène Deslauriers
On 1st November, Judge John Agostini, presiding over the Pittsfield Court remarked that people “don’t often see a large crowd here,” but a large crowd had indeed gathered that day. As previously discussed, the case before him involved two separate hearings for preliminary restraining orders against the Berkshire Museum and its Trustees to stop the sale of a […]
Posted on: September 25, 2015 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper
A change to the law in Scotland could have an impact on objects left at museums, where the owner has disappeared or has become untraceable. The draft bill before the Scottish Parliament would first seek to introduce a 20 year positive prescription period, whereby a possessor of corporeal movable property (i.e. an object like a painting) would […]
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 […]
Posted on: September 21, 2015 by Alexander Herman
Can you imagine a monument as precious to the British as Stonehenge being sold at auction? Well, it happened 100 years ago today at an auction in the town of Salisbury. The winning bidder, a barrister named Cecil Chubb paid £6,600 for it (supposedly as a present to his wife), then three years later bequeathed it […]
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 […]
Posted on: February 19, 2015 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper
A reminder that the evening seminar, Succession Planning for Art: Owners, Collectors and Creators, will run this Wednesday, 25th February 2015, at Collyer Bristow LLP in London. It will cover the ways in which artists, dealers and collectors can plan for the treatment of works of art following death, touching upon the following areas: gifts, loans, wills, […]
Posted on: January 13, 2015 by Alexander Herman
On the heels of McBride v Christie’s Australia, came another auction dispute from Australia, this one involving the children of renowned painter John Olsen and Sotheby’s Australia. Sotheby’s had listed for auction an Olsen work entitled Mother, which had been painted in 1964 for the painter’s second wife, marking the birth of their daughter. The children, now executors of their mother’s […]