Posted on: July 19, 2018 by Makoto Shimada
On 1st June 2018, the Kokkai, the National Diet of Japan, enacted the Substantial Amendment to the Law for the Protection of Cultural Property. The new Act will come into force on 1st April 2019. Under the 1950 Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties, cultural property with historical or artistic value is selected by the government […]
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: July 10, 2015 by Alexander Herman
Just a quick update to say that yesterday the European Parliament voted – overwhelmingly – to remove the proposed restrictions on Freedom of Panorama (FOP) from the report currently being debated. The proposal had been outlined in two earlier blogs: here and here. That means the status quo will be maintained: countries such as the UK, […]
Posted on: July 9, 2015 by Alexander Herman
Judgment was handed down yesterday in an important case involving a Henry Moore sculpture (Draped Seated Woman) lovingly known as ‘Old Flo’. The sculpture, bought from the artist by London County Council in 1962 to be publicly displayed in the city’s East End, has been at the centre of a dispute between two London boroughs: […]
Posted on: July 8, 2015 by Alexander Herman
As the European Parliament is set to vote tomorrow on the amended Report dealing with the harmonisation of ‘Freedom of Panorama’ across Europe, the opposition to the Report has taken off. This can be seen in the nearly 500,000 digital signatures acquired in the last week alone protesting the current provisions of the Report: notably the […]
Posted on: December 11, 2014 by Alexander Herman
It was a front page story in The Times of London last Friday. It was on the front page of the New York Times the next day. But generally, how has the reaction been to the trustees of the British Museum loaning the statue of river god Ilissus to the Hermitage in St Petersburg? To say the least, it caught […]
Posted on: December 8, 2014 by Mathilde Roellinger
The French Constitutional Council, in a decision rendered on 14 November 2014, declared that article 2 of the law of 23 June 1941 concerning the export of works of art did not comply with the Constitution. The application for a priority preliminary ruling was submitted by an owner of precious furniture who, in the 1980s, […]
Posted on: December 3, 2014 by Alexander Herman
For the first time since its discovery in February of 2012 – or indeed for the first time ever – the collection of approximately 1600 works of art belonging to Cornelius Gurlitt has been made public. This has been done by the Museum of Fine Art Bern (or Kunstmuseum) in two separate parts: those found in his […]
Posted on: October 7, 2014 by Alexander Herman
As reported last week, an important collection of Egyptian antiquities, the Harageh Treasure, was withdrawn from auction at Bonhams in London, where it had been consigned by the Archaeological Institute of America St Louis Society, with an estimated sale price of £80,000 to £120,000. It has since been revealed that the Treasure had been bought by the […]
Posted on: October 3, 2014 by Alexander Herman
The Wedgwood collection of porcelain, photographs and paintings has been saved. As reported in September, a deadline had been given of 30 November 2014 to raise the remaining £2.7 million of the nearly £16 million needed for the Art Fund to buy the collection and keep it in one piece. The remaining amount has since […]