Court Case For Van Gogh Art

The Detroit Institute of Art went to court to protect what museum leaders say is its rightful ownership of an 1889 painting by van Gogh worth at least $15 million, by one estimate. The DIA took the action after failing to resolve a long-simmering dispute with the heirs of a Nazi-era Jewish collector, who claim that the painting, which has been in the DIA's collection since 1970, belongs to the family.
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Irish Art

Sotheby's £500,000 Missing Art

A painting worth an estimated £500,000 has disappeared from Sotheby's auction rooms in New Bond Street, London. Sotheby's said it had contacted the police and was studying CCTV footage, but at this stage could not say whether the painting had been stolen. "All we can say is that it's missing," an embarrassed spokeswoman said. She said it had been sent to the auction house by a private client, but would not say who the client was, or give further details of the work. But she denied a newspaper report that the old master had disappeared after a staff Christmas party.
Irish Art

Caravaggio Art Found

In one of France's most exciting artistic discoveries of recent years, two paintings by the 16th-century Italian artist Caravaggio have been found in a church in the central town of Loches, the town's municipal authority said yesterday. "Pilgrimage of Our Lord to Emmaus" and "St. Thomas Putting His Finger on Christ's Wound" hung ignored for nearly two centuries under the organ loft in the Church of St. Anthony but have been verified by experts. "When I walked into the room where the paintings were, I was completely shocked...It was very emotional. This kind of thing happens once in a lifetime," says Caravaggio specialist Jose Freches.
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Irish Art

Urinal Art Attack

A 77-year-old Frenchman who attacked and damaged a plain porcelain urinal that was declared a work of art by Dada pioneer Marcel Duchamp has been fined 214,000 euros ($302,446). A Paris court also gave Pierre Pinoncelli a three-month suspended sentence. The urinal, called Fountain, was slightly chipped after Pinoncelli hit it with a hammer. It had been on display at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Pinoncelli explained to the court he had attacked the work in the same absurdist spirit Duchamp had used to declare it art.
"This was a wink at Dadaism," Pinoncelli told the court, according to Reuters. "I wanted to pay homage to the Dada spirit."
He spent a night in police custody after the attack. It was his second run-in with the work — the man had urinated on the same piece at an exhibition in Nimes, in southern France, in 1993. In 2004 a group of British art experts called Fountain one of the most influential art works of the 20th century.
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Irish Art

Art Dealers 'Betrayed' By Govt

The Government has been accused of betraying Britain's £4.2 billion-a-year art market by abandoning a hard-won concession on a levy imposed by the European Union. Two reports, one from an influential House of Lords committee and the other by the London Assembly, criticise ministers for their policy about-turn. The Government has announced that the levy, called droit de suite, will be charged on all works by living artists that are resold for €1,000 (£680) or more in Britain. Yet for years the Government backed the British art market in its opposition to droit de suite and negotiated a deal with the EU under which the levy would apply only to works selling for €3,000 (£2,040) or more.
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Irish Art

£37 Million Art Recovered

A three year hunt for a stolen £37m Renaissance salt cellar dubbed the “Mona Lisa of sculptures” came to an end yesterday when the suspected art thief led Austrian police to his buried treasure. The world’s most expensive salt cellar, called the Saliera and crafted by artist Benvenuto Cellini between 1540 and 1543, was found undamaged in a wooden case in a forest outside Zwettl, the suspect’s home town 55 miles north of Vienna. Police did not identify the art-thief, who was still being questioned. The man had been captured on a surveillance camera while buying the mobile phone that was used to send a text message to police in a failed attempt to extort a ransom.
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Irish Art