I was proud to advise the Allentown Art Museum, which announced today that it has reached an agreement with the heirs of Henry and Hertha Bromberg concerning Portrait of George, Duke of Saxony by Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop. Pursuant to the agreement, the painting will be auctioned at Christie’s in New York next year following educational programming focusing on the painting’s history. The Museum’s press release can be read here. The story was also addressed in an excellent article in The New York Times by Graham Bowley.

(Portrait of George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony, by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop)

Topics: Graham Bowley, Paris, Washington Conference Principles, Christie's, Hamburg, Lucas Cranach the Elder, The New York Times, Nazi-confiscated art, Henry Bromberg, Hertha Bromberg, Martin Bromberg, Max Weintraub, Reichsfluchtsteuer, Allen Loebl, F. Kleinberger Gallery, property inventory, Allentown Art Museum, Portrait of George the Bearded Duke of Saxony, Porträt des Georg dem Bärtigen Herzog von Sachsen, Vermögensverzeichnis, Wildenstein

I am pleased to be a presenter and panelist at an event later this month on a topic of evergreen currency: museums and deaccessioning. As we’ve covered here, the pandemic has put pressure on museums in ways that were hard to foresee only 12 months ago. The response by museums, museum associations, and attorneys general has taken a variety of approaches. Just in the last year alone from Brooklyn, to Baltimore, to Syracuse, and most recently the Metropolitan Museum of Art, whether, when, and how museums should handle sales of their collections remains a volatile subject. 

Topics: Donn Zaretsky, Dallas Museum of Art, New York University, Deaccessioning, Williams College, Christie's, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Sotheby's, 17 U.S.C. § 106A(a)(3)(A)-(B), Nicholas M. O'Donnell, ARTnews, Jakob Dupont, Sarah Douglas, Brooklyn Museum, Syracuse University, Anne Pasternak, Stephanie Johnson-Cunningham, Museum Hue, Dean Craig M. Boise, Andrew Saluti, Agustín Arteaga, Joseph Thompson, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Courtney Aladro, Mark Gold, James Sheehan, Steven Lubar, Brown University, Everson Museum of Art, Emily Stokes-Rees, Cara Starke, Sally Yerkovich, Brian Frye, University of Kentucky College of Law, Silberman Zaretsky, PC, Peter Dean, Randolph College, Andria Derstine, Oberlin College, William Eiland, Carl Van Vechten Art Gallery, Christy Coleman, Ken Turino, Nina del Rio, Hindman Auctions, Michael Shapiro, Allison Whiting, Julia Courtney, Christopher Bedford, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Julia Pelta, Fisher Museum, Thomas Campbell, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Linda Harrison, Glenn D. Lowry, The Museum of Modern Art, Tracey Riese, Melody Kanschat, Museum Leadership Institute, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Betsy Bradley, Mississippi Museum of Art, Michael O’Hare, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley, Erin Richardson, Frank & Glory, Smith Green & Gold LLP, New York State Department of Law, Michael Conforti, Amy Whitaker, Stefanie Jandl, Deborah Kass, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Meleko Mokgosi, Wendy Red Star, Carrie Mae Weems, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Roxana Velásquez, The San Diego Museum of Art, University of Georgia Museum of Art, Jamaal Sheats, Fisk University, Kristina Durocher, Association of Academic Museums and Galleries, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Historic New England, Lawrence Yerdon, Strawbery Banke Museum, Scott Wands, American Association for State and Local History, When is it Okay to Sell the Monet?, Glenn Adamson, Bern University of the Arts, Michelle Millar, The Newark Museum of Art

News broke last week that auction house Christie’s had agreed to pay a $16.7 million fine to the Manhattan District Attorney for failing to collect sales tax between 2013 and 2017. This was surprising in many ways, but a reminder of the lurking dangers of sales and use tax in multi-state and international art transactions. While the variables can seem daunting, the decision-tree of how to account for sales and use tax need not be overly complicated. The Christie’s settlement is an opportunity to review the rules of the road.

Topics: Christie's, Sales & Use Taxes, Dennis Kozlowski, Tyco International, Ltd., Manhattan DA

For several years late January has been occasion for gatherings of the Responsible Art Market Initiative, a collective of art market stakeholders striving for consistency and standards in the international market that started in collaboration with the Art Law Centre at the University of Geneva. I have been proud to contribute to the RAM Task Force as it composed the Due Diligence Toolkit and country guides for, among other things, anti-money laundering legislation, and I am currently on the Advisory Board.

Topics: Anne Laure Bandle, Geneva, Sandrine Giroud, Christie's, Megan Noh, Art Law Centre, University of Geneva, Mathilde Heaton, Responsible Art Market, Marc-André Renold, Ralph Wyss, Deloitte, Phillips, An Art Market in Evolution, 5th European Anti-Money Laundering Directive, Artssurance, Anne-Claire Bisch-Saffioti, LINK Management, Sharon Hecker, Sarah Charles, Catherine Denoun, Rudy Capildeo, Katharina Ammann, Swiss Institute for Art Research, Sarah Allen, Hauser & Wirth, Anne-Sophie Nardon

The following is an article that appears in the January issue of Apollo magazine.

Topics: Christie's, Edward Hopper, Apollo Magazine, Chop Suey, Barney A. Ebsworth, Planned gifts, Seattle Art Museum, promissory estoppel, detrimental reliance

The idea of moral rights continues to be a notable difference between European and American intellectual property rights with respect to visual arts. Last week’s decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in a case brought by artist Chuck Close and others addressing the California Resale Royalty Act (the CRRA) underscores those distinctions. In holding that the CRRA is mostly preempted by federal copyright law and thus can be applied to entitle artists to secondary royalties only for sales of art in a single calendar year—1977—the 9th Circuit affirmed the skepticism with which American law continues to regard anything other than classic copyright. Given the failure of efforts to pass national legislation to provide for resale royalties, this decision is probably the end of the line for the foreseeable future in the U.S. for droit de suite, the term of art used to describe the concept.

There is, for better or worse, clearly no political constituency for resale royalties in the U.S. As I told Law360, and as we’ve opined before about the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA), property rights are in many ways a quintessential American policy. We all reflected on the Declaration of Independence last week, and its proclamation of the primacy of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—which revised John Locke’s famous statement that governments are instituted to secure “life, liberty, and property.” Copyright is and always will be a limitation on absolute ownership, but Americans guard those limitations jealously. There is little sign that will soon change.

Topics: American Royalties Too Act, Chuck Close, Commerce Clause, Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, Christie's, Cal. Civ. Code § 986(a), VARA, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Dormant Commerce Clause, Preemption, droit de suite, California Resale Royalty Act, U.S. Constitution, Sotheby's, eBay, CRRA, Declaration of Independence, Copyright Act of 1976, Morseburg v. Baylon, John Locke, Supremacy Clause, 1909 Copyright Act

Since the passage in 2016 of the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act, many commenters (here included) have grappled with what the implications of the law will be on the scope and frequency of future claims.  Even as litigants are faced with policy arguments about whether individual claims belong in U.S. courts—arguments that the HEAR Act should have put to rest—it is occasionally worthwhile to consider how prior cases would have been affected.  Such analysis can draw into relief why the law was such a significant step forward.  This week, news that a painting by Vincent Van Gogh once owned by Elizabeth Taylor will go to auction again provides one such example.  A beautiful painting in the collection of the biggest movie star in the world makes for a great sales pitch, but missing in the coverage is any mention of Margarethe Mauthner, a German Jew who owned the painting before fleeing the Nazi regime.  The exact circumstances under which she lost possession of the painting are unclear, but those circumstances might have had the chance to be determined had the HEAR Act been passed earlier.  The importance of that opportunity is worth considering as the law is assessed going forward. 

Topics: Margarethe Mauthner, Nazi-looted art, Van Gogh, Christie's, Holocaust Victims Redress Act, Sotheby's, Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act, HEAR Act, A Tragic Fate, Vue de l'asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Rémy, Alfred Wolf, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Cassirer

The National Gallery London hosted on September 12, 2017 the much-anticipated conference “70 Years and Counting: the Final Opportunity?” organized by the United Kingdom Department for Digital, Culture Media & Sport (DCCS), and the Commission for Looted Art in Europe (CLAE). Delegates from numerous countries gathered to consider the state of progress on the efforts to identify and return works of art lost during the Nazi era.  While the event had a truly international flair, the discussion centered primarily on the five countries that have created some sort of process to consider assertions of looted art in response to the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art: England, France, Austria, the Netherlands, and Germany. 

Topics: Victoria and Albert Museum, Kunstrückgabebeirat, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, National Gallery London, Constantine Cannon LLP, Commission for Looted Art in Europe, Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, Christie's, Advisory Commission, Johannes Nathan, Monica Dugot, Imke Gielen, Sotheby's, Neumeister Auction House, Richard Aronowitz-Mercer, Tony Baumgartner, Clyde & Co., John Glen, UK Spoliation Advisory Panel, The Orpheus Clock, Art Restitution Advisory Board, Margreet Soeting, H. Blairman & Sons Ltd., Katrin Stoll, Department for Digital Culture Media & Sport, DCCS, CLAE, 70 Years and Counting: the Final Opportunity?, Gabriele Finaldi, David Lewis, Minister for the Arts Heritage and Tourism, Sir Paul Jenkins, Dr. Antonia Boström, von Trott zu Solz Lammek, Simon Goodman, Sir Donnell Deeny, Jan Bank, Restitutions Committee of the Netherlands, Dr. Reinhard Binder-Krieglstein, Professor Dr. Reinhard Rürup, Jean-Pierre Bady, Commission pour l’indemnisation des victimes, CVIS, Dr. Christian Fuhrmeister, British Library, Nathan Fine Art, Stedelijk Museum, Pierre Valentine, Martin Levy

Topics: Legislation, Resale Royalties, Chuck Close, Supreme Court, Christie's, Cal. Civ. Code § 986(a), Dormant Commerce Clause, droit de suite, sales tax, Cal. Redev. Ass’n v. Matosantos, use tax, American Royalties Too (ART) Act of 2015, California Resale Royalty Act, Copyright, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Sotheby's, eBay

Topics: Equity for Visual Artists Act of 2011, Resale Royalties, Ed Markey, American Royalties Too Act, Chuck Close, Resale Royalty, Jerrold Nadler, Christie's, Tammy Baldwin, California Resale Royalties Act, Copyright, United States Copyright Office, Sotheby's, eBay, Art Law Report