Poland announced the purchase of the Czartoryski art collection for about €100 million (US$105 million; £85 million). The collection includes roughly 86,000 artworks and features Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine, which is valued higher than the purchase price and insured for about €330 million. The sale involved Adam Karol Czartoryski negotiating with the Ministry of Culture, and the Czartoryski Foundation’s board resigned in protest.
Poland agreed to acquire the Czartoryski family collection, valued at more than $2 billion, for $105 million. The deal, described by the minister of culture as a donation, keeps the artworks in Poland and prevents the pieces from leaving the country. The collection includes works by Rembrandt, Luca Giordano, Peter Brueghel the Younger, and Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady With an Ermine (1489-90).
Poland agreed to buy a 1490 Leonardo da Vinci painting titled Lady with an Ermine for 100 million euros ($104.6 million) from the Czartoryski Foundation. The deal also involves taking over a large art collection and a library, with additional insured artworks such as Rembrandt’s Landscape with the Good Samaritan.
Poland's culture ministry bought the Czartoryski collection, including Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine, for about 100 million euros plus tax. The painting is insured for about 350 million euros and is part of a collection that also includes a Rembrandt and Renoir drawings and Chopin's letters.
Joanna Berendt reports that a significant private art collection, including Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady With an Ermine and works by Rembrandt and Renoir, will be owned by the Polish government under an agreement with the Czartoryski Foundation.
The article reports that Várdai István, a renowned Hungarian cellist, received a Stradivari cello worth several billion forints from an anonymous German patron. The instrument, dating from 1673 and known as Ex du Pré-Harrell Stradivarius, is one of only 65 Stradivari cellos made. Previous owners included Jacqueline du Pré and Lynn Harrell, with a storied history including Harrell once leaving the cello in a taxi. The piece also notes the cello’s rarity among Stradivari’s 750 bowed instruments.
The article reports that Joshua Brown, a 17-year-old from Gurnee, Illinois, has been handed a 1679 Pietro Guarneri violin on long-term loan by a patron of Chicago’s Stradivari Society, a division of Bein & Fushi.
The Globe and Mail article discusses the Max Stern Restitution Project in Montreal, which recovered two Dutch Old Masters paintings and announced a solution for requesting the return of plundered art from rightful owners or their heirs; the artworks include Ships in Distress on a Stormy Sea by Jan Porcellis and Landscape with Goats by Willem Buytewech the Younger, with commentary from Wesley Fisher and Clarence Epstein on restitution and tax receipts in Germany.
Joshua Brown, a 17-year-old American violinist, has been granted long-term use of a 1679 Pietro Guarneri violin on loan from the Stradivari Society of Chicago. He studies with Almita and Roland Varmos at the Academy of Music Institute of Chicago and has previously won major prizes at the Enkor and Cooper International Violin Competitions.
John Constable’s sketch “Flatford Lock on the Stour looking towards Bridge Cottage” sold for $1,079,557 at Bonhams’ Old Master Paintings sale on December 8, setting a new world record for a small-scale Constable sketch (under 10 inches). The work was a study for “Landscape: Boys Fishing” and had been in a private U.S. collection; its sale informs the genesis of the finished painting, which is now in poor preservation. Bonhams’ Andrew McKenzie commented on strong pre-sale interest and bidding.
The anonymous purchaser of the Du Pré-Harell Stradivarius has placed it on extended loan with István Várdai, a Hungarian cellist and 2014 ARD winner. The instrument, made in 1673, is one of fewer than 65 surviving Strad cello models and has been previously owned by Jacqueline du Pré, Lynn Harrell, and Nina Kotova.
The report concerns violinist Pavel Vernikov, whose 1747 Guadagnini violin valued at £1.5 million was stolen from a train at Geneva Cornavin station. The instrument, made in Piacenza by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini in 1747, was taken after a large man blocked Vernikov while he tried to reach the violin from the luggage rack; four bows were also taken and Vernikov’s wallet and papers were stolen. The article notes the instrument’s maker and mentions other musicians who have used Guadagnini instruments.
Two Dutch Old Master paintings, Ships in Distress on a Stormy Sea by Jan Porcellis and Landscape with Goats by Willem Buytewech the Younger, were returned to the Max and Iris Stern Foundation and its beneficiaries at a restitution ceremony in Berlin. The pieces had been forcibly sold during the Nazi era and were among the 14th and 15th works returned to Concordia University, McGill University, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The Sun reports that an antique violin worth £1.5 million was stolen from a packed train’s luggage rack at Geneva Cornavin station while Pavel Vernikov tried to alight. Vernikov, a concert musician, said a ‘large man’ blocked his attempt to retrieve the violin, which was made by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini in Piacenza in 1747 and is valued at £1.5 million; four bows were also in the case. Vernikov is appealing for help to recover the instrument.
The violino Guadagnini valued at 1.5 million euros was stolen from Pavel Vernikov on a train returning from Vienna, along with four bows and identification papers. The instrument, a 17th-century Guadagnini nicknamed Contessa Crespi, was loaned to Vernikov by the Fondazione Pro Canale of Milan and previously used by Riccardo Brengola.
The article discusses a violin attributed to Antonio Mariani of Pesaro, bearing his label with a partly illegible date 166-. It references the Mariani family and their reputation, notes on their workshop practices and stylistic traits, and mentions the instrument illustrated in The Strad from March 1985.
The Violin Channel reports a 1747 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin was stolen in Geneva, Switzerland, with the owner’s wallet and passport also in the case; the instrument comes with four bows by Eugene Sartory, Dominique Peccatte, Marie Nicolas and Jacob Eury. Recent Guadagnini sales from this period have reached over US$1.5 million. A contact number is provided for information: +41 795 218 286.
The article reports that a violin made by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, owned by concert performer Pavel Vernikov, was stolen on a train in Geneva, Switzerland. The instrument’s value is stated as over 1.5 million Swiss francs (about 1.4 million euros), and four bows plus the musician’s identification documents were also stolen.
The Limbach Commission ruled that the heirs of Felix Hildesheimer are entitled to a remedy for his 18th‑century Guarneri violin, potentially looted or lost after a forced sale in Nazi Germany. The instrument was created in 1706 by Cremonese violin-maker Giuseppe Guarneri (filius Andreae). Hildesheimer, a German Jew who ran a Speyer music business, purchased the violin in 1938 and died by suicide in 1939 after property confiscation.
James Ensor’s 1891 painting Squelette arrêtant masques sold for €7.4 million ($7.84 million) at Sotheby’s Paris, breaking the artist’s record and the 2016 French painting record. The work previously held a higher pre-sale estimate, and Ensor’s prior record was $6.97 million for Les poissardes mélancoliques at Sotheby’s New York in 2015.
Descendants of a Montreal man who recovered paintings looted by the Nazis establish the Jorisch Family Artist Residency in Austria through Concordia University, supporting a Concordia fine arts graduate student to study in Salzburg for a month. The paintings included Gustav Klimt works once owned by Georges Jorisch’s relatives.
The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra will return Port en Bessin (1883) by Paul Signac, a Nazi-looted artwork, to the heirs of Marcel Koch. The painting was given to the orchestra in 1940 by Roman Loos and is valued at $500,000.
BBC News reports that a 1610 Amati cello worth hundreds of thousands of pounds has been placed on a lifetime loan to teenager Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who won BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2016. The anonymous donor arranged the loan, and violin maker Florian Leonhard described the instrument as the ultimate virtuoso soloist’s tool.
Sotheby’s London Old Masters evening sale exceeded its high estimate at £14.8355 million, led by Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s Return from the Kermesse at £2.5775 million and a Titian workshop portrait at £2.10875 million.
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s piece, titled Made in Japan, reportedly sold for just under $15 million at Art Basel Miami Beach. The sale was at Helly Nahmad Gallery and the buyer was Dimitri Mavrommatis, with Barbra Streisand observed nearby and Andy Warhol’s Diamond Dust Shoes also purchased by Mavrommatis for $3.8 million at Dominique Levy Gallery.
Camille Pissarro Rue Saint-Honoré, dans l'après-midi. Effet de pluie (1897) was involved in a Nazi art restitution case as Lilly Cassirer and heirs challenge ownership in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The painting, once owned by the Cassirer family, is valued around $30 million and had previously been ruled to Spanish ownership under California law; the case has progressed through litigation for years.
The Associated Press reports that Camille Pissarro’s Rue St. Honoré, après-midi, êffet de pluie (Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain), 1897, owned by Lilly Cassirer, who fled Nazi Germany, may be returned to Cassirer’s heirs. The work is currently in Spain’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum since 1993. David Boies, representing Cassirer’s great-grandchildren, argued before a federal appeals court that international treaties and state law support returning the painting; the museum’s attorney contends the painting was legally purchased and Cassirer lost rights in 1958 after accepting $13,000 from the German government, a position Boies disputes.
Reinhold Begas's marble sculpture Susanna, dating from 1869, was restituted to the heirs of Rudolf Mosse. The work will remain on loan to the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin. The Mosse family’s restitution project and prior Nazi-looted acquisitions are noted, including eight works returned in 2015 and other restitutions related to the Mosse estate.
James Castle, Ulysses Davis, Thornton Dial Sr., William Edmondson, Howard Finster, Bessie Harvey, Judith Scott, Bill Traylor and others are included in a gift of 93 works to the Smithsonian American Art Museum from Margaret Z. Robson. The Robson collection represents the largest acquisition of self-taught artworks in 20 years and was approved by the SAAM Board of Commissioners; the works span paintings, drawings, and sculptures.