$491 million


Christie’s yesterday shattered the previous auction record with its sale of post-impressionist works the New York Times reports today. The previous record was $269 million. Of the sale, about $125 million involved the sale of recently repatriated works which were looted by the Nazies during World War II. Before the sale, five of them were hanging in museums.

Christie’s does a good job of making these auctions a spectacle. I’ve never seen one firsthand, but they must be quite a show. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is the way many of the buyers are secret. We may never know who purchased some of these works. Certainly, we cannot argue that the heirs of holocaust victims are entitled to the return of works that was taken from them during the war. However, looking at the end result, are we all better off having these Klimt’s in a wialthy benefactor’s living room? I don’t think so. In my view courts should do a better job of fashioning compromise between nations and claimants.

The image is by Hiroko Masuike, for the New York Times. Other images are available here.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Picasso Pulled

The Picasso I discussed yesterday was removed from auction today, even after a Federal District Court Judge dismissed the claimant’s suit. Apparently he brought suit in NY State Court today. At first blush, I don’t think he has much of a case. We will see how accommodating the NY courts will be though, I suppose.

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Sale of Picasso’s "The Absinthe Drinker" may be halted

Christie’s may have a difficult time breaking the single-auction record today. The Art Newspaper reports the auction house is considering removing the work from the sale. Andrew Lloyd Webber was attempting to sell the work, estimated at $60 million, with the proceeds going to charity. The work, from Picasso’s blue period, was also the subject of a Federal District Court Case, dismissed yesterday.

The dismissal has not been published yet on Lexis, but the New York Times has an overview of the claimant’s case. Judge Jed Rakoff dismissed the claims because the federal law dealing with Holocaust restitution was inapplicable in this case. I’m not an expert on holocaust litigation, so I’m not sure which law the NYT is talking about. Apparently, the claimant has a case in New York state court however.

The claims seem tenuous to me at first blush. The plaintiff, Mr. Schoeps, is the heir of Paul von Mendelssohn-Barthold, a wealthy Berlin banker and art collector. He was forced to sell all his paintings as a result of Nazi persecution. The Nazi’s didn’t actually take the painting, but they seized his assets so that he had no choice but to sell the work. The ruling was just issued yesterday. I’ll try to get my hands on the dismissal and look at the substance of the claims. To me, though, it seems like the claimant will have a very difficult time winning the case. We shouldn’t underestimate the underlying equities of a case either, Lloyd Webber was selling the work in order to donate the proceeds to charity. Though Mr. Schoeps story is indeed a tragic one, I’m not sure he will be using the work, or its proceeds, in as charitable a manner.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Repatriation Fuelling the Art Market

In today’s New York Times, another article on how the art market is booming. One of the reasons has been the recent repatriation of art looted by the Nazis in World War II. I discussed the Klimt’s earlier this week, but there are also works by Kirchner, Vuillard and Picasso.

This remains an interesting issue. When courts and commentators speak of repatriation, it is often done so in terms of how these pieces of art have been taken during the war, and how they should be returned to the heirs of the original owners. An unacknowledged issue though, is how valuable these works are. There value can be so high, that its simply not economically feasible for the current claimants to hold on to them, and they end up auctioning them. Perhaps instead of simply awarding title to the paintings, courts may want to fashion compromises. They could agree to a fractional ownership scheme, allowing a claimant to hold on to the work for a certain part of the year for example. Or they could agree to a one-time payoff. In the United States, replevin actions are the primary mechanism which claimants use to seek the return of works of art. However, ownership disputes spanning 60 years are not always easily solved by awarding title to one party or another. A better solution may be a compromise between the parties.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Record price for Pollock’s No. 5, 1948?


The New York Times reports today that David Geffen may have sold a drip painting by Jackson Pollock for $140 million dollars yesterday. The price has yet to be officially confirmed, but may indicate that the art market is currently booming, which seems in line with the potential for Christie’s to set a record auction next week.

It seems Geffen may be unloading his art collection in a bid to purchase the LA Times. The price would exceed the $135 million Ronald S. Lauder paid for a Klimt last year.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Kingsland Update

Antiques and The Arts Online has a piece about the Kingsland auction. It seems Kingsland may have been a student at Harvard. Also, there were some 400 paintings in his 1-bedroom Manhattan apartment. Sounds suspicious to me. The City of New York and the Stair Gallery should have perhaps known that something was not quite right about the situation.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Record Auction For Christie’s New York?

An auction of Impressionist and other modern works in New York next month may become the most lucrative art auction ever, The Times Online reports. The November 8-9 auction could fetch $490 million. Four Klimts, including Adele Bloch-Bauer II (pictured here) are for sale, as well as a blue-period Picasso. The Times reports that the art market has not been this active since 1990.

The Klimts are from the Altmann collection, which was recovered from Austria last year after an arbitration ruling granted the heirs of Adele Bloch-Bauer the five pieces after a 7-year legal battle. The New York Times gives a background of the dispute in its story about another Bloch-Bauer portrait which fetched a record $135 million. When Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Bloch-Bauer fled, leaving all his possessions behind, and for the last 60 years, the works have hung in the Austrian National Gallery.

The legal dispute even reached the US Supreme Court, in Republic of Austria v. Altmann. That decision upheld lower court rulings which involved the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which grants foreign nations immunity from suits in US courts. The Court upheld an exception of FSIA which allows suits when property has been taken in violation of international law.

The Klimts are exceptionally valuable, and certainly Mrs. Altmann has an excellent claim to the works. However, in terms of the general public, do these works belong in Austria, where they were commissioned? Or are they just as worthy of hanging in a museum in the US? The question is moot I suppose, because the works are Mrs. Altmann’s to dispose of as she pleases. But are the works Austrian in character, such that they can only be fully appreciated in Austria? I think not. These are the arguments some antiquities experts make though in support of the return of antiquities to their source nation. I guess I’m not really sure why the argument should be any different between art or antiquities.


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More from the Stair Gallery and William M. V. Kingsland

When rare objects turn up stolen, speculation often arises about wealthy collectors who in their opulent boredom have commissioned a theft-by-order. I think an apt label for this kind of collector could be Dr. No. These kinds of stories and attendant speculation are far-fetched, but are they sometimes true? One possible Dr. No figure may be the mysterious Melvin Kohn, also known as William M. V. Kingsland, which I first discussed last week.

The NY Times devoted an article to his death and the auction of his estate last week, but unfortunately the article was labeled local news and was only available via their Select Service. Lucky for us, they made an error in the story, and a corrected version is available free here. Kingsland died this spring, and apparently he was a widely known figure in his East-Side neighborhood. His obituary is here. His estate, including a great deal of art, eventually went to auction, leading to the discovery that at least some of the pieces were stolen. As I said last week, the auction has been halted, and the Stair Gallery is attempting to undo the auction, a process that can’t be very pleasant for anyone involved. The Harvard Crimson reports that one of the portraits could be a John Singleton Copley, or could be a copyist. The Copley may have been stolen from Harvard in 1968; the work is pictured here.

In addition to the NY Times article, there’s been coverage in the Harvard Crimson and the Boston Globe. Some have commented that its rare that the Copley went so cheap at auction, but that this may have been due to the fact that one just doesn’t expect to find one of his undiscovered works at an auction. The New York Sun also has an article that clarifies how the material was sold. The City of New York sold the Kingsland estate to Christie’s and Stair Galleries, who then resold it.

If nothing else, the Kingsland estate’s misadventures make for an interesting story. They also point out continued flaws in the market. Auction houses are selling objects without a provenance, or chain of title. If we buy and sell cars with a chain of title, why cannot dealers and galleries introduce such information? The answer, I guess, is that it may be bad for business; tradition may dictate against such a thing; or they may not know the information. It may also just be a practical extension of the fact that, they have purchased this estate, and need to sell it as quick as practicable, because they are running a business.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Sevso Treasure on Private Display

For the last week, the infamous Sevso treasure has been on display in Bonham’s auction house in London. The New York Times devotes an article in its art section to the exhibition. The private exhibition marks only the second time the 14 silver objects have been displayed, and its not even open to the general public. Some estimates value the 14 sculptures at $187 million. The last display occurred in new York in 1990. The silver objects are roman in origin, and are believed to date from 350 – 450 A.D.

Despite their beauty, the antiquities are marred by controversy. This week’s display was certainly made in anticipation of an eventual sale. However, the location, archaeological context and provenance of the find remain unknown. We do know the Marquess of Northampton acquired the objects in the early 1980’s. In 1983, 10 of the objects were offered for sale to the Getty museum, however the sale fell through because the export licenses were falsified.

One of the difficulties with these items is that their origin remains a complete mystery. Though certainly Roman in origin, Lebanon, Croatia, and Hungary have all made claims on the objects. There was a lengthy series of legal proceedings. After a 7 week trial in 1993 in the New York Supreme Court (the court of general jurisdiction in New York) a jury found that neither Croatia nor Hungary had established a valid claim over the treasure, and the Marquess of Northampton retained ownership.

The exhibition and potential sale have caused quite a stir already. In the London Times, Lord Colin Renfrew, former director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research argued that the display of the works by any UK museum would be unethical, and “It is an affront to public decency that a commercial dealer should do so – even if many archaeologists such as myself, will take the opportunity of going to inspect it.” The problem of course, is we know the objects are Roman, but not which part of the former Roman empire they were discovered in. Hungary and Croatia both feel strongly about their claims, but they are unable to establish concrete ownership.

There has been an atmosphere of reform in recent years in the UK, with accession to the 1970 UNESCO Convention, the Ministerial Illicit Trade Advisory Panel, the Parliamentary Inquiry in 2001, and the new Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003. How the UK government will respond to the trade in these objects, which was undoubtedly the result of an illicit excavation should be interesting to watch unfold.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Praise for the Stair Gallery


Stair Galleries, a small gallery in Hudson, New York has discovered that it was auctioning works which may have been stolen from Harvard University in 1968. The painting, similar to this portrait of 19th century Harvard President, and founder of the law school, John T. Kirkland. The work resembles this portrait by Gilbert Stuart which sold for $182,000 this summer in Manchester, New Hampshire (pictured here).

However, it appears that the work may not be an original Gilbert Stuart painting, according to the Harvard Crimson. The painting was sold for $7,500 last week, as a part of the estate of William M. V. Kingsland. Kingsland had no heirs, and no will. The distribution of his estate was in the charge of a public commissioner, which commissioned the items to Christie’s and Stair galleries to auction the objects.

Colin Stair, the president of Stair galleries, halted the sale of 250 objects from the Kingsland estate. The FBI has been investigating the sale, to determine if any of the works have been stolen. A dealer who purchased paintings was the first to discover that one had perhaps been in the Harvard collection in the 1960’s.

Details are still a bit sketchy, and the only reporting on this I have found has come from the Harvard Crimson. It raises some issues though. What database were being consulted. Did they check the Art Loss Register, or another? Was the work published in these databases? If anything it highlights the need for a single database, and a need to publish these stolen databases for everyone.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com