Posted on: July 4, 2016 by Emily Gould
It was heartening to see the strong support for the Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill 2016 when it was debated at the Committee Stage in the House of Lords last week (28 June). The Lords discussed at length, and with some passion, the amendments tabled by a number of peers. The proposals for changes came […]
Posted on: November 18, 2015 by Alexander Herman
Officially launched last month, the UK’s Emergency Heritage Management Project will look to help preserve and recover cultural objects and edifices in Iraq that are under threat. In the words of the press release: “It will create a team of local experts to assess, document and stabilise afflicted sites in Iraq, and help begin the process […]
Posted on: October 22, 2015 by Janet Ulph
A dispute over a highly attractive marble statue sparked headlines in the national press in early September 2015. It had been seized by Customs officers and kept in the British Museum for safekeeping during the legal proceedings. The District Judge, John Zani, had examined the statue there before coming to a decision that it had been […]
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: September 7, 2015 by Alexander Herman
There was a story this morning in the Guardian which once again brought to light the requests by Ethiopia for the return of the remains of one of the country’s royal princes, Prince Alemayehu, currently buried at Windsor Castle near London. The young prince had been brought to England in 1868 following the destruction of the Abyssinian fortress town of Magdala at […]
Posted on: September 3, 2015 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper
Our friends at the Franco-British Lawers Society (England & Wales section) will be hosting a free event in London on 9 October entitled ‘The Art of Advising – Art Law in Practice‘. The event will be held at Notre Dame University, London campus (famous venue for a number of IAL courses and conferences) and will run […]
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 […]