Category: All Articles

London to host landmark conference on stolen art

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Hundreds of experts from across the globe will descend on London in September for an international conference on Nazi-looted art.

‘70 Years and Counting: The final opportunity?’ will be the first European conference dedicated to the issue of spoliation in five years. Organised by the UK Government and the Spoliation Advisory Panel and sponsored by the Commission for Looted Art in Europe the conference will aim to bolster efforts to return stolen artworks to their original owners. It will look at strengthening partnerships and increasing cooperation to speed up the process of restitution. Continue reading →

Goods Mortgages – an explosion in art-lending?

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The Law Commission is currently consulting on its latest piece of draft legislation – the Goods Mortgages Bill. As the name suggests, the proposed legislation enables individuals to use goods they currently own as security for debts. It also regulates the relationship between borrowers, lenders and third parties who may acquire secured assets.

The Bill replaces the current law in this area (contained in the “Bills of Sale Acts”) which is antiquated and needlessly complex. Recently, this area of law has come under scrutiny thanks to the expanding “logbook loan” industry, which involves the making of low-value loans to individuals on the security of their cars. However, there are also examples of higher-value lending over other assets, including furniture, wine and classic cars. Continue reading →

Banksy’s balloon girl chosen as the UK’s favourite artwork

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Banksy’s ‘Girl with Balloon’ has floated to the top of a list of the UK’s favourite artworks.

Samsung polled some 2,000 Britons who were asked to select their most beloved artwork from a shortlist of 20 chosen by arts writers and editors. Banksy’s little girl holding a red, heart-shaped balloon fought off J.M.W. Turner’s ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ (1839) and John Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ (1821) for the coveted top spot. Continue reading →

Art thieves lead Spanish police to stolen Francis Bacon paintings

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Three artworks by Irish-born artist Francis Bacon from a collection worth over £22 million were recovered by Spanish police in Madrid last week.

The paintings were among five works by the acclaimed 20th century artist stolen in June 2015 from the home of Bacon’s friend, José Capelo. It is believed to have been the largest contemporary art heist in Spanish history. Continue reading →

EU gets tough on trafficking in antiquities

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The European Commission is planning to strengthen import regulations to tackle the scourge of illicit trafficking in stolen artefacts.

The proposed rules were laid out at a meeting of the Commission last Thursday (13 July). Part of the Commission’s action plan to strengthen the fight against terrorism financing, the new European Union framework bans the import of goods into the EU, which were illegally removed from their home countries. Under the old framework only goods from Iraq and Syria are subject to import prohibitions. Continue reading →

Family triumph in the battle for Nazi-looted Pissarro

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The family of a Jewish woman from whom the Nazis forcibly removed a multimillion pound Impressionist painting may yet see the return of the work after a US court ruled in their favour.

Lilly Cassirer’s great-grandchildren, David and Ava Cassirer, have fought for 16 years for the restitution of Camille Pissarro’s ‘Rue Saint-Honoré, Après-midi, Effet de Pluie’ (1897). On Monday (10 July), the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California revived the lawsuit against Madrid’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, which had been dismissed by a US District Court Judge in 2015. The District Court had ruled that the Museum owned the painting under Spanish law. Continue reading →

Great green urban space planned for Londoners

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Londoners could soon be relaxing in an iconic new public park in Mayfair designed to be the city’s ‘leading public space for the 21st century’.

Grosvenor Britain & Ireland is polling 1000 Londoners to crowd-source ideas on how to use Grosvenor Square after it takes back management of the public space from The Royal Parks of London. Ideas gathered through the ‘Shaping the Square’ campaign will be delivered to a panel of leading cultural, architectural, horticultural and landscape design professionals. The panel will hold an international competition in 2018 to select a winning design for a ‘great 21st century urban garden’. Continue reading →

Private collector claims innocence in restitution tussle

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A private art collector has vowed to defend himself against a restitution claim for a painting by Andreas Achenbach.

Wolfgang Peiffer lent a number of works from his private collection for an exhibition at the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf in collaboration with the Museum L8A in Baden-Baden. Among the loans was Achenbach’s ‘Sicilian Landscape’ (1861), which has been claimed by the heirs of Jewish art dealer Max Stern. After it was registered as a missing work by Interpol and on the German database lostart.de the painting was recognised by a researcher at the L8A exhibition. When New York’s Holocaust Claims Processing Office (HCPO) tried to contact Peiffer about the work he did not respond. Continue reading →

Jewel heist strikes Chelsea art fair

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An internationally renowned art and antiques fair in London was hit by jewel thieves last week.

Up to £3m of jewellery is missing after a heist at Masterpiece London in Chelsea, which is understood to have taken place sometime between 5pm on 4 July and 9:30am on 5 July. The target was the stand of Geneva-based jewellers, Boghossian, but no arrests have been made at this stage. Detectives from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea are investigating the theft and there have been appeals for any witnesses to come forward. Continue reading →