A new piece at the Art Newspaper reflects on the importance of the Portrait of Wally case. Wally was seized in 1998 by customs officials on the theory that it was stolen property when imported into the U.S. The painting sat in a warehouse for 12 years, until a settlement returned the painting to Vienna in 2010 and a payment to Lea Bondi's heirs was made. I recall well the citywide celebrations in the Austrian capital when the painting returned; banners on lampposts proclaimed Bildnis Wally kehrt zurück—Portrait of Wally returns!
Portrait of Wally in Hindsight: What did it Really Change?
Posted by
Nicholas O'Donnell on April 25, 2012 at 1:53 PM
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Topics: Maria Altmann, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, Malewicz v. City of Amsterdam, The Art Newspaper, 22 U.S.C. § 2459, FSIA, IFSA, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Portrait of Wally, S.B. 2212, Immunity from Seizure Act, Customs, Gustav Klimt, Vienna
Ruminations on Connoisseurship, Forgery, Knoedler and Litigation in the News
Posted by
Nicholas O'Donnell on December 9, 2011 at 5:02 AM
We’ve been following a number of prominent stories for several weeks now and thinking about what they mean in the crossover between art and the law. It’s fair to say that a theme is starting to develop, namely, that after the Beltracchi forgery trial in Cologne, the Warhol Foundation’s decision to close its doors to authentication requests, and the brewing scandal over the authenticity of paintings sold by Knoedler and other galleries, the legal significance of knowing—and even asking—the age-old question from Art History 101—“who made that?”—has come again to the fore.
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Topics: Cologne, Forgery, Knoedler, The Art Newspaper, Inc., Degas, Jackson Pollock, catalogue raisonné, Wolfgang Beltracchi, Collections, The Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Georgina Adam, The Art Law Blog, connoisseurship
