Restitution claims

A group of Ethiopian works of art believed to have been taken during the Battle of Maqdala in 1868 has been withdrawn from a Dorset auction after the Embassy of Ethiopia intervened.

Restituted pictures remain a key area of supply for fresh Old Masters and Christie’s evening sale on July 8 includes two Dutch Golden Age paintings.

A sight loss charity in London has benefited from a surprise windfall after pictures restituted to the estate of a benefactor were sold at auction in Vienna.

The increasingly contentious issue of selling Benin works of art at auction raised its head again last week after an ancestral plaque catalogued as 16th or 17th century was withdrawn from an East Sussex sale.

The Anschluss of 1938 between Nazi Germany and Austria had a devastating effect on Vienna’s Jewish population.

Painting went through lengthy ownership saga before being returned to family and then sold.

Given the growing number of claims made by national governments and heritage authorities when it comes to the antiquities sector, 2020 looks set to be another year of further controversies. Here, lawyer Fred Clark, an associate in Boodle Hatfield LLP’s art team, surveys the legal landscape of the ancient art market and looks ahead to what may well become a more regulated world.

Sussex auction house Burstow & Hewett has withdrawn a rare Maori cloak after its imminent sale was met by online threats and abuse.

Berlin auction house Grisebach posted an auction record for the Swiss artist Karl Stauffer-Bern (1857-91) on May 29 when it sold a self-portrait which had been recently restituted to the family of its original Jewish owners.

The arrival of the ivory ban in late 2019 is not the only piece of imminent legislation that the antiques trade should be aware of. The efforts of global art and antiques trade body CINOA are currently focused on two broad issues: anti-money-laundering legislation and laws surrounding the import of cultural goods.