The case concerns six Klimt paintings seized or coerced from Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer's estate during Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany. The American heir sued Austria and the Austrian Gallery to recover the paintings, invoking the FSIA's expropriation exception. The Supreme Court held that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act applies to conduct that occurred before its enactment, allowing the case to proceed on the expropriation-exception theory.
A descendant of the original owners of the Picasso painting Boy with a Pipe, 1904, is consulting lawyers to determine how ownership was lost; the work commanded $104 million as the world’s most expensive painting last month, and questions the 1949 sale despite a will aimed at keeping it in the Berlin family.
Amedeo Modigliani's Garçon à la Veste Bleu sold for more than £6m at Sotheby's in London, contributing to a total of over £61m raised across 60 lots featuring Picasso, Renoir, Monet and Vincent van Gogh. Other notable results included Van Gogh's Deux Crabes and Egon Schiele's Liebespaar; Renoir's Portrait de Rapha Mantre was withdrawn before sale.
Andrew Brownsword, a greetings card millionaire and hotelier, buys Sisley’s View of the Thames: Charing Cross Bridge for a charity that lends to public collections. The painting is shown at the National Gallery for three years. Brownsword’s Andrew Brownsword Art Foundation has previously acquired Gainsborough, Lowry, and John Brett works for public loan or charity purposes, and was involved as a underbidder at Sotheby’s for Spencer’s Christ preaching at Cookham Regatta.