Tag Archives: uk

Double Glazed: Taking Artists’ Rights Seriously and… Algorithmically

Posted on: March 4, 2024 by Chen Zhu

The Cybernetic Milkmaid What would Vermeer (1632-1675) feel if he lived until today when he suddenly discovered that his artistic style could be reproduced by state-of-the-art generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools? How would Han van Meegeren (1889-1947), a skilful art forger who infamously fooled Nazis with his faked Old Masters’ paintings (including Vermeer’s), react to […]

2023 Year in Review

Posted on: December 21, 2023 by Alexander Herman

What can be said about art law in 2023? Of course, developments in our sector are often linked to trends in the wider world. This year saw the sad continuation of the war in Ukraine and an unprecedented conflict between Israel and Hamas that erupted after the terrorist attacks of 7 October. Azerbaijan has fully […]

V&A Agreement with Yemen to Care for Ancient Objects Found in London Shop

Posted on: September 27, 2023 by Hugh Johnson-Gilbert

Last week the V&A announced that it had reached an agreement with the Republic of Yemen (‘Yemen’) to research and temporarily care for four ancient carved funerary stelae that had been discovered by an archaeology enthusiast in an interior design shop in East London. The museum’s announcement explained that the objects, dated to the second […]

Spoliation Advisory Panel Recommends Return of Courbet Painting to Original Owners

Posted on: May 5, 2023 by Lilian Palmer

The UK’s Spoliation Advisory Panel, which handles claims relating to lost possession of cultural property during the Nazi era, has not published a new report in seven years. As such, their most recent recommendation, published on 28 March 2023, is particularly worthy of note. The Panel has recommended that a landscape painting by leading French […]

Export deferred Portrait of Mai to be co-purchased by NPG and Getty

Posted on: April 3, 2023 by Alexander Herman

An incredible piece of news dropped on the rather inauspicious time of Friday afternoon. This was the announcement of a plan by the National Portrait Gallery in London (NPG) and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles to jointly acquire the famous ‘Portrait of Omai’ by Joshua Reynolds (left), a work that has been export deferred […]

Arts Council England releases new guidance for museums on restitution and repatriation

Posted on: August 5, 2022 by Alexander Herman and Emily Gould

Today, Arts Council England released its guidance on restitution and repatriation for English museums. Restitution and Repatriation: A Practical Guide for Museums in England offers guidelines, best practice and case studies for the museum sector, helping institutions act appropriately and considerately in the context of claims for the return of collection objects. It replaces previous […]

Return to donor: Tate to deaccession Bacon archive

Posted on: July 20, 2022 by Joanna Owens

The Tate is to take the unusual step of deaccessioning from its collection and returning to the donor material from the studio of Francis Bacon, once described as the Tate Archive’s most important acquisition ever and suggested to be worth around £20m. The Tate is one of a number of UK National Museums governed by national legislation, whose […]

Fabergé in London – Russia sanctions and immunity from seizure

Posted on: May 25, 2022 by Alexander Herman

On 8 May, the exhibition Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution concluded at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. Several of the pieces on display had been lent by collections in Russia, namely those of the Kremlin in Moscow and the Hermitage in St Petersburg. The exhibition, which opened on 20 November 2021, began in a […]

Court decision on ‘technicality’ prevents claim over allegedly fake antiquity

Posted on: September 1, 2021 by Alexander Herman

On 9 August a decision came down from the High Court of England and Wales that imparts an important lesson about limitation periods and related timelines for the service of proceedings. The decision also reveals useful information about a particular dispute over allegedly fake antiquities, showing just what happens when negotiations between buyer and seller […]

Whistler’s portrait and copyright in artistic works

Posted on: July 15, 2021 by Elena Cooper

This month sees the opening of a major new exhibition of the work of the artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) at the Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow, which holds one of the largest Whistler collections in the world: Whistler: Art and Legacy (9 July-31 October 2021). In this blog, I reflect on how one painting by […]