Tag Archives: gallery

National Gallery of Canada selling Chagall to buy… David

Posted on: April 18, 2018 by Alexander Herman

As reported earlier this month, the National Gallery of Canada has plans to sell a painting from its collection by artist Marc Chagall at Christie’s in New York on 15 May. The funds will be used to acquire a work by Jacques-Louis David, which was confirmed this week by the Gallery. The Chagall piece on […]

Hearing in the Berkshire Museum deaccession case

Posted on: November 3, 2017 by Hélène Deslauriers

On 1st November, Judge John Agostini, presiding over the Pittsfield Court remarked that people “don’t often see a large crowd here,” but a large crowd had indeed gathered that day. As previously discussed, the case before him involved two separate hearings for preliminary restraining orders against the Berkshire Museum and its Trustees to stop the sale of a […]

Completion of the DipLCM course

Posted on: October 25, 2016 by Alexander Herman

Last week saw the completion of another intake of our Diploma in Law and Collections Management course, which ran from 17 to 21 October. The course, which is geared towards professionals in the museum and gallery sector, covered areas as wide ranging as restitution, cultural heritage laws, mediation, treasure, insurance, copyright and bailment. Guest speakers included Tony […]

Access to Art: the good news and the not so good…

Posted on: April 7, 2016 by Emily Gould

Significant developments on three of the stories we’ve been watching closely of late appeared in the news this week: Firstly, that the deferral on an export licence for the Sekhemka Statue has now been lifted, so it will almost certainly be leaving these shores before too long. Secondly, that pieces from the Gurlitt art hoard […]

Street artist and community fight for dismembered mural

Posted on: December 18, 2015 by Alexander Herman

British street artist “Stik”, known for painting giant stick-figure images on buildings around the world has become involved in a campaign to restitute a mural he helped create in the city of Gdansk, Poland in 2011. The mural, which features a series of 53 stick figures holding hands in celebration of the local community, was […]

Rembrandt export application dropped

Posted on: October 28, 2015 by Alexander Herman

It has been reported by the BBC that the export application submitted by the new owner of a £35 million Rembrandt (covered here) has now been withdrawn. The work will therefore remain in the UK and will potentially be loaned by the owner to a museum or gallery in this country. One wonders if the next step […]

Guess who’s back?

Posted on: October 12, 2015 by Alexander Herman

Goya’s Marquesa de Santa Cruz is back in London. Those with long memories will know that this painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya had been taken out of Spain in the mid 1980s and brought to auction at Christie’s in London, only to incur the ire of the Spanish government. The work had left Spain in 1983 accompanied by forged […]

Glasgow to compensate heirs of Nazi victim

Posted on: October 9, 2015 by Alexander Herman

Following on from my last post about two recent reports from the UK’s Spoliation Advisory Panel (SAP) regarding Nazi-looted art in British public collections, it was reported this summer that Glasgow City Council has followed an earlier SAP recommendation in relation to a 16th century tapestry fragment held at the city’s Burrell Collection. The November 2014 report recommended that an ex gratia payment (literally meaning […]

Proposed law in Scotland could affect museum objects

Posted on: September 25, 2015 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper

A change to the law in Scotland could have an impact on objects left at museums, where the owner has disappeared or has become untraceable. The draft bill before the Scottish Parliament would first seek to introduce a 20 year positive prescription period, whereby a possessor of corporeal movable property (i.e. an object like a painting) would […]

The Hugh Lane Collection: a hundred years on

Posted on: May 31, 2015 by Alexander Herman

The disputed collection that had once belonged to the great Irish dealer and collector Sir Hugh Lane has once again made the headlines. Lane died one hundred years ago this month on the Lusitania when the ship was sunk by German U-boats on its journey from New York to Liverpool. He had put together a fantastic art […]