Posted on: July 15, 2016 by Alexander Herman
No, your eyes are not deceiving you. The title of this post is correct. There is currently a Bill before the UK Parliament to return the Elgin Marbles (aka the Parthenon Marbles) to Greece. It received its first reading in the House of Commons on Monday, 11th July, and is scheduled for a second reading on […]
Posted on: July 7, 2016 by Alexander Herman
A little-discussed restitution of a still life by Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625) led to an important sale at Sotheby’s London last night. The work, Still Life of Flowers in a Stoneware Vase, had once belonged to Baron Alphonse von Rothschild and had been kept at his castle in Schillersdorff, Silesia (now Silherovice, Poland). A forced transfer […]
Posted on: July 4, 2016 by Emily Gould
It was heartening to see the strong support for the Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill 2016 when it was debated at the Committee Stage in the House of Lords last week (28 June). The Lords discussed at length, and with some passion, the amendments tabled by a number of peers. The proposals for changes came […]
Posted on: July 1, 2016 by Alexander Herman
The IAL will be bringing its popular DipAPLE course to the Courtauld Institute in London this September for an intensive weeklong version of the course. The Courtauld Institute’s Law Society has invited the IAL to offer the Diploma in Art Profession Law and Ethics course to its student members over five days from 26th to 30th September 2016. […]
Posted on: June 29, 2016 by Alexander Herman
Of course we need to mention the very real possibility of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union following last Thursday’s referendum vote. We held a class on Saturday as part of our Diploma in Art Profession Law and Ethics (with some sad faces in the room, it should be said) and listed off a number of instruments and regulations in […]
Posted on: June 22, 2016 by Emily Gould
Yesterday’s workshop on art crime at Queen Mary, University of London, which we mentioned on the blog last week, was a fascinating event, providing much food for thought. The workshop (part of an AHRC-funded series) focussed mainly on art theft, seeking to answer key questions such as: what is the prevalence of art theft internationally? […]
Posted on: June 7, 2016 by Emily Gould
It was interesting to see that the judgment in the important ‘Old Flo’ case on which we reported in July 2015 has now been upheld by the Court of Appeal. You might recall the story. Old Flo – or Draped Seated Woman, to give Henry Moore’s 1,500 kg bronze figure her proper title – was […]
Posted on: June 1, 2016 by Alexander Herman
Thanks to the release of the Panama Papers last month, more has been leaked in relation to the dispute involving Modigliani’s Seated Man with a Cane (the painting shown below, reputed to be worth £15 million), which places the current owner, a company named the International Art Center, against a descendant of Oscar Stettiner, the Parisian dealer from whom the painting […]
Posted on: May 19, 2016 by Alexander Herman
At long last… It was announced in the Queen’s speech yesterday that the UK Parliament would see the introduction of a bill to ratify the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. This is a positive sign and one that had been hinted at (with little more) by […]
Posted on: May 16, 2016 by Alexander Herman
My aunt, Gabrielle de Montmollin, a photographer and artist in Canada, is currently exhibiting her work in Toronto. I thought the show would be a good opportunity to discuss some of the copyright issues raised by her artistic approach. In particular, it serves as a way to explore a relatively new exception existing under Canadian […]