Restitution claims

One of New York’s most prolific antiquities collectors has surrendered 180 ‘looted’ items from his collection and been barred for life from acquiring antiquities again.

A rare 17th century elephant automaton clock was the star of the Christie’s New York Exceptional sale when it sold at $2.15m (£1.58m) to a private buyer.

Every lot of a collection of Meissen porcelain, restituted earlier this year to the heirs of Dr Franz Oppenheimer, was sold in a recent US sale.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including the US ruling on whether Turkey could take ownership of the Guennol Stargazer.

A group of Ethiopian works of art believed to have been taken during the Battle of Maqdala in 1868 has been withdrawn from a Dorset auction after the Embassy of Ethiopia intervened.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of art at auction raised its head again last week after an ancestral plaque catalogued as 16th or 17th century was withdrawn from an East Sussex sale.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.