Judge Leonie Brinkema will hold a hearing tomorrow morning in Alexandria, Virginia on the Baltimore Museum of Art's motion for summary judgment to claim ownership to an 1879 Renoir painting Paysage Bords de Seine that the museum maintains was stolen in 1951. Claimant Martha Fuqua filed a motion to strike the BMA's reply to her opposition, arguing that the museum was introducing new evidence. The court swiftly denied the motion, and noted that the museum was responding to arguments she made for the first time in her opposition to the summary judgment motion (but gave her permission to file a sur-reply).
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Topics:
hearsay,
authentication,
Pierre-Auguste Renoir,
Potomack Company,
flea market Renoir,
ancient documents,
Der Spiegel,
Martha Fuqua,
Baltimore Museum of Art,
Litigation,
business records exception,
summary judgment,
Museums,
Paysage Bords de Seine,
FRCP 56
The last remaining claimants for the 1879 painting by Pierre Auguste Renoir, Paysage bords de Seine that surfaced in the possession of a woman who claimed to have found it at a flea market, have filed summary judgment papers seeking final disposition of the case without need of a trial. The Baltimore Museum of Art has made its case that the painting was stolen from the museum in 1951, while Martha Fuqua alleges that she purchased it in good faith at a Virginia flea market in 2009 before attempting to sell it at the Potomack Company. The U.S. government seized the painting from the auction house and filed an interpleader action to determine the true owner; the other principle claimant (Fireman’s Fund Insurance) dropped out of the case last fall without explanation, apparently pursuant to an assignment. Heirs of the original donor to the BMA never responded or made claim to the painting. The case will now turn at summary judgment on the hearsay rule, a topic that have bedeviled generations of law students and lawyers.
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Topics:
hearsay,
authentication,
Pierre-Auguste Renoir,
Potomack Company,
flea market Renoir,
ancient documents,
Gurlitt,
Martha Fuqua,
Baltimore Museum of Art,
Litigation,
business records exception,
summary judgment,
Museums,
Paysage Bords de Seine,
FRCP 56
Amidst all the coverage over famed graffiti artist Banksy’s recent "residence" in New York and questions about how artistic license would fare against trespassing and graffiti laws (short answer: poorly), another graffiti case in New York this month has explored the reach of the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA). Ultimately, the law did not suffice to prevent the owner of the so-called "graffiti Mecca" from proceeding with its intended use of the property (and obliteration of the graffiti).
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Topics:
Carter v. Helmsley-Spear,
Copyright Act,
Inc.,
Graffiti Art,
Visual Artists Rights Act,
recognized stature,
VARA,
Jerry Wolkoff,
Banksy,
17 U.S.C. § 106A,
Erin Thompson,
Copyright,
5Pointz,
Litigation
A New York Supreme Court judge dismissed the claims filed against the Metropolitan Museum of Art over whether its admissions policy was inconsistent with city law and the museum’s charter. Lost in many of the headlines, however, is that the entire lawsuit was not dismissed; another claim for misrepresentation is, for the moment, still alive.
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Topics:
Theodore Grunewald,
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
TomášNadrchal,
Filip Saska,
Patricia Nicholson,
Stephen Michelman,
City of New York,
Litigation,
Museums,
Manhattan County Supreme Court,
Shirley Werner Kornreich
For more than two years now, the collapse of the M. Knoedler & Co. Gallery in New York amidst allegations of forged paintings by well-known 20th Century artists has sent ripples in all directions: legal, art historical, legislative, and connoisseurship. Several recent developments have drawn focus to the likely litigation fallout among those affected by the scandal.
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Topics:
Andy Warhol Foundation,
Daedalus Foundation,
William K. Rashabaum,
Forgery,
Knoedler,
Ann Freedman,
Wolfgang Belctracchi,
Marco Grassi,
Jackson Pollock,
Robert Motherwell,
Patricia Cohen,
Litigation,
Glafira Rosales,
New York Times,
M. Knoedler & Co.,
connoisseurship,
New York Magazine,
National Public Radio
In a story that gets more unusual with every new development, the Russian Foreign Ministry has reportedly recommended filing a lawsuit, in Russia, against the United States Library of Congress in response to last month’s contempt sanctions order by the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia arising out of Russia’s refusal to obey a judgment to return the Chabad Lubavitch library of Menachem Schneerson.
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Topics:
Russian Times,
Russian Foreign Ministry,
sanctions,
The Art Newspaper,
Library of Congress,
22 U.S.C. § 2459,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities,
Litigation,
Immunity from Seizure Act,
Chabad,
Sergey Lavrov
A complaint filed against the Metropolitan Museum of Art over its admissions fee policy is gaining widespread coverage. Although the headlines center on the plaintiffs’ allegations of fraud, Theodore Grunewald and Patricia Nicholson (the two plaintiffs) also put forward several other legal theories.
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Topics:
Theodore Grunewald,
General Obligations Law § 349,
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Patricia Nicholson,
Central Park,
fraud,
Litigation,
Museums,
Admissions Fee
