Justin Sun, the crypto-tycoon who bought Maurizio Cattalan’s infamous banana artwork last year, is suing the billionaire film producer David Geffen over a $78 million (£62 million) Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) sculpture. Sun claims the piece was stolen from him by a rogue assistant and sold to Geffen without his knowledge.
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A Spanish collector is facing prison time for allegedly forging at least 15 works by artists including Edvard Munch (1863-1944), Saul Steinberg (1914-1999), and Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997). Guillermo Chamorro, 67, was a respected collector who consigned artworks to auction houses across Europe.
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Italian police have thwarted the fraudulent sale in Austria of a painting by Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1656). A specialised task force, known as the Carabinieri Cultural Heritage Protection Unit, discovered the fraud by searching through auction catalogues and online offerings. As a genuine work by the most celebrated female artist of the Baroque period, the painting is valued at a staggering €2 million (£1.7 million).
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In the art world, confidentiality is king. But that can be a challenge for claimants in art fraud cases. However, help is at hand in the form of Norwich Pharmacal applications, as the case of Hickox v Dickinson [2020] EWHC 2520 (Ch) shows.
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A painting by one of the greatest 19th-century English artists has found itself at the centre of a cyber-hacking scandal. Continue reading
Coins, jewellery, mosaics, glassware, vases, figurines and other artefacts are reportedly being excavated and smuggled out of Iraq and Syria on an ‘industrial’ scale, to be sold online or in Western dealerships. Continue reading
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