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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.