Posted on: April 16, 2015 by Alexander Herman
‘What do you know about art restitution?’ ‘Not a thing.’ The question comes from Maria Altmann, played by Helen Mirren, and the answer is from her lawyer, Randol Schoenberg, played by Ryan Reynolds, in Woman in Gold, the film dramatising Altmann’s quest for the return of five Gustav Klimt paintings that had been taken from her family during the […]
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 […]
Posted on: March 9, 2015 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper
There has been a slew of media coverage in the UK and elsewhere on the reported destruction by agents of the Islamic State (ISIS) of the unequalled archaeological site of Nimrud in Iraq. While many of the reliefs, wall paintings and a number of the mythical winged bull gatekeepers are kept out of harm’s way […]
Posted on: December 10, 2014 by Nina M. Neuhaus
Have you ever wondered what archaeologists think about illegal excavations and looting – and how best to tackle them? Well I did and so I asked Kathryn R. Morgan, a staff member at the University of Chicago’s Neubauer Expedition to Zincirli and the University of Pennsylvania’s Gordion project. Kathryn is a Ph.D. student at the […]
Posted on: November 25, 2014 by Alexander Herman
As reported yesterday, an agreement has been reached between the Bern Museum of Fine Arts (or Kunstmuseum), the German Republic and the Bavarian State on how to deal with the works of art bequeathed by Cornelius Gurlitt in his will to the Museum. A summary of the agreement is now available in English. In general […]
Posted on: October 21, 2014 by Alexander Herman
A recent dispute has arisen over the sale of artworks, pitting the relatives of two Jewish victims of the Nazis against a Swiss foundation that has been laying claim to assets once owned by the couple. The convoluted saga has been recounted by the New York Times. It involves the extensive art collection of Berlin metals broker Norbert Levy, a collection which […]
Posted on: August 26, 2014 by Alexander Herman
A few recent articles have reported on the looting of antiquities from the areas of Syria and Iraq controlled by the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS): in The Guardian in June, The Sunday Times in July and the International Business Times. It is unclear from the sources whether such looting is actually being perpetrated by members of ISIS or […]
Posted on: June 27, 2014 by Alexander Herman
It has recently been reported that an 18th Century tapestry belonging to Comte Bernard de la Rochefoucauld and looted from the Château de Versainville during the Nazi occupation of France has been voluntarily returned by the University of Sheffield in the UK. The tapestry, which had been taken from the Comte’s residence, was later bought by the […]
Posted on: March 12, 2014 by Alexander Herman
The first claim has been filed in relation to the artworks seized from the Munich apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt. The plaintiff is David Toren, a descendent of David Friedmann, the wealthy art collector from Breslau (now Wroclaw), who was persecuted as a Jew in Nazi Germany and died in 1942. The claim, dated 5th March 2014, […]
Posted on: December 15, 2013 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper
The Egyptian Antiquities Ministry has announced that a priceless statuette of the sister of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun has been found in Cairo, though few details as to precisely how it came to be recovered have been released. The statuette, which was the highlight of the museum in the city of Mallawi (near the archaeological remains […]