Posted on: July 24, 2018 by Alexander Herman
Yesterday, an Italian painting with a colourful history had its fate sealed by a UK court. The Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court has decided that Arts Council England (ACE), the delegated authority that issues export licences for cultural property leaving UK shores, was not the ‘competent authority’ to issue an EU licence for […]
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 […]
Posted on: April 18, 2018 by Alexander Herman
As reported earlier this month, the National Gallery of Canada has plans to sell a painting from its collection by artist Marc Chagall at Christie’s in New York on 15 May. The funds will be used to acquire a work by Jacques-Louis David, which was confirmed this week by the Gallery. The Chagall piece on […]
Posted on: February 9, 2018 by Alexander Herman
The story begins 150 years ago. In 1868, deep in the deserts of east Africa, a British expedition led by General Robert Napier, was attacking the capital of the Abyssinian Empire, Maqdala, ruled over by King Tewodros. The British were looking to teach Tewodros a lesson for having imprisoned a number of British envoys and […]
Posted on: November 28, 2017 by Alexander Herman and Holly Woodhouse
Last month, on the 21st of October, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office (along with local police) seized an ancient Achaemenid Persian bas-relief from the European Fine Art Fair at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. The item was being offered for sale by the London-based art dealer Robert Wace for roughly $1.2 million. The […]
Posted on: February 20, 2017 by Alexander Herman
A 16th century painting by Jacopo Pontormo, Portrait of a Young Man in a Red Cap, which had been subject to an export deferral beginning in December 2015, is now stuck in cultural export limbo. This is because the owner of the portrait, American billionaire J. T. Hill, has refused a matching offer from a British institution, The National Gallery, […]
Posted on: February 16, 2017 by Alexander Herman
There is a very intriguing exhibition on at the moment at Modern Art Oxford featuring the artist Lubaina Himid. She makes political, opinionated and at times furious pieces in various media, from sculpture to canvas to pottery. The show is called Invisible Strategies and spans work going back to the artist’s early days in the 1980s to pieces created just last year. […]
Posted on: November 25, 2016 by Alexander Herman
We are very happy to be delivering a tailored in-house training at the V&A Museum in London next week. The two-day course, open to V&A personnel only, will include instruction on museum ethics, property acquisition, conflict of laws in the cultural sector, immunity from seizure and the law of gift, bailment and loan. We look […]
Posted on: October 3, 2016 by Alexander Herman
We are pleased to announce the full programme for this Saturday’s study forum in London. Topics range from art and insurance and cultural heritage in times of war to painting misattribution, shipwrecks and immunity from seizure. The event will take place at Notre Dame University at 1 Suffolk St (near Trafalgar Square) and registration will […]
Posted on: August 1, 2016 by Alexander Herman
We had earlier this year reported on a claim lodged at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg by an independent Athenian association seeking the return of the Parthenon Marbles. The claim of the Syllogos Ton Athinaion (or ‘Athenians’ Association’) has been rejected by the Court on admissibility grounds. In a short ruling dated 23 June 2016 […]