Posted on: January 22, 2016 by Emily Gould
It was reported earlier this week that an on-line text of Anne Frank’s famous diaries, rather controversially posted by a French academic and a French MP on 1st January this year, has already apparently been viewed more than 50,000 times. You may have been following the somewhat acrimonious saga. The academic and MP who posted the […]
Posted on: January 8, 2016 by Alexander Herman
Since our last report on the Gurlitt case, there have been several developments. What better way, then, to begin the new year with a post on a story that has been unfolding since 2013? Plus ça change… The German-Bavarian appointed Task Force has now been folded into the German Lost Art Foundation, which will continue administering the remaining […]
Posted on: October 2, 2015 by Alexander Herman
An art exhibition in Norway is built around a work by Henri Matisse, Blue Dress in a Yellow Armchair, and yet the work isn’t even there. The Henie Onstad Museum returned the work in March 2014 to the heirs of Paul Rosenberg, the famous Parisian art dealer whose collection of masterpieces had been looted by the Nazis […]
Posted on: September 30, 2015 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper
Those of our readers from Chicago (or passing through the area) may be interested in a fascinating conference coming up called Art Restitution, Preservation of Cultural Heritage and the Human Right to Identity hosted by the John Marshall Law School, running on 15-16th October 2015. The programme includes presentations on the return of Nazi-looted art, the protection of cultural sites during […]
Posted on: September 24, 2015 by Alexander Herman
The Spoliation Advisory Panel, the UK body that hears disputes relating to Nazi-looted art held in national collections, has delivered two important reports this month. The first is a follow-up on an earlier 2014 recommendation that the Tate return a Constable painting, ‘Beaching a Boat, Brighton’, to the descendants of the painting’s original owner, Baron Hatvany of Hungary. The Baron had […]
Posted on: August 6, 2015 by Alexander Herman
It has been some time since we discussed the Gurlitt affair in these pages. And what has happened since? Well, the challenge to Gurlitt’s will by his cousin Uta Werner has continued on. It is now before the Higher Regional Court in Munich (Oberlandesgericht München) and just last month the Court requested a psychological opinion concerning Gurlitt’s competence […]
Posted on: April 17, 2015 by Alexander Herman
Last month, the Dutch Restitutions Committee published its recommendation regarding a claim brought forward by the heirs of the three Stettiner siblings who ran the Stettiner Gallery in Paris until it was closed during the Second World War. The claim involved a portrait by Salomon Koninck (1609-1656) entitled Old Man with Beard, which currently forms part […]
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: April 2, 2015 by Alexander Herman
Last month, the UK government finally responded to the Department for Culture Media & Sport’s consultation regarding changes to the cultural object export licensing system which took place between May and August 2012. The response indicated the changes that will be brought about to the export system and which have already been incorporated by the Arts Council in […]
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 […]