I was proud to advise the Allentown Art Museum, which announced today that it has reached an agreement with the heirs of Henry and Hertha Bromberg concerning Portrait of George, Duke of Saxony by Lucas Cranach the Elder and...more
We have been writing a lot recently about trends in the global market for fine art. One specific area that deserves attention is steps taken to stamp out laundering illicit funds via the art market, such as through auctions...more
When Christie’s Auction House first entered the secondary art market of mainland China in 2005, it licensed its brand to a local auction house and received a total of RMB 97,000,000 (roughly $12,100,000) for its inaugural...more
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are the latest development in disruptive blockchain technology innovations, this time in the world of digital art, collectibles, and even luxury goods. Traditional auction houses have already...more
Seven Important Traits - Attempting to value NFTs is a speculative and challenging practice, in part because they are still relatively new and there are few comparable assets. The newsletter Bankless gives seven traits to...more
In connection with the late-2020 amendment to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) to include “dealers in antiquities” as a result of its inclusion in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the Treasury Department’s Financial...more
Welcome back and to those of you who celebrated a belated Happy St. Patrick’s Day. While I can’t promise that this installment of the Spotlight will be the “hair of the dog,” it should still make for a great accompaniment...more
Welcome back to another week in the Spotlight. It is truly remarkable to think that it has (already? only?) been one year since the World Health Organization’s declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, shuttering sports arenas,...more
Non-fungible tokens (or NFTs) are unique blockchain-based tokens that can represent almost anything, including physical assets. NFTs have been growing significantly in popularity in recent years because of this potential to...more
Join us for a discussion of estate and philanthropic planning for art and other valuable collections. Topics to be covered include: - Collection ownership and management to protect the value of the collection (document,...more
It would be a truism to note that COVID-19 has had a profound impact on many sectors globally. The art industry, which relies considerably on the human interaction between art dealers, artists, and members of the public, is...more
Robin Pogrebin at the New York Times has written an excellent piece on the news that the Brooklyn Museum intends to sell several works from its collection to raise money. The museum explicitly relies on the pandemic-inspired...more
A recent report by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (headlined by Chairman Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, and Ranking Member Tom Carper, Democrat of Delaware) has drawn widespread attention...more
Since online auctioneer Paddle 8 filed for bankruptcy protection in March, creditors of the company have begun filing their notices of claim in the bankruptcy case. One thing on which the creditors all seem to agree is that...more
Individuals, trusts and companies buying or selling art via UK galleries and auction houses will now be subject to the same customer due diligence checks as those opening bank accounts in the UK. What has changed? The...more
In recent art world news, British artist David Hockney’s iconic painting “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” (1972) set an auction sale record for a living artist when it sold for an astonishing $90.3 million in...more
In recent art world news, as an update to our recent post on the fall sale of American works from the $300 million Barney Ebsworth collection, the highly anticipated sale of American modern art occurred earlier this week and...more
In recent art world news, Sotheby’s announced that England-based street artist Banksy’s iconic Girl With Balloon (2006), which infamously shredded itself moments after being sold at auction in London earlier this month, has...more
In recent art world news, over the summer art dealer David Killen purchased a storage locker in New Jersey containing 200 works of art for $15,000 after hearing about it and taking a cursory look before completing the sale. ...more
In recent art world news, more than 85 works from Barney Ebsworth’s art collection will be on the auction block in November at Christie’s in New York. The late travel entrepreneur’s collection is estimated at over $300...more
In recent art world news, Sotheby’s reported a $57.3 million net income in the second quarter of this year in a recent earnings call earlier this week. This figure represents a decrease of $19.6 million or about 26% in...more
In recent art world news, a Norman Rockwell painting titled “Blacksmith’s Boy—Heel and Toe” (1940) from the Berkshire Museum’s collection sold for $7 million (with buyer’s premium added, the figure is about 8.13 million) to a...more
In recent art world news, a coveted David Hockney oil painting titled Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica (1990), featuring a colorful California landscape along the Pacific Ocean, has been added to Sotheby’s upcoming...more
Since the passage in 2016 of the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act, many commenters (here included) have grappled with what the implications of the law will be on the scope and frequency of future claims. Even as...more
In recent art world news, following strong sales in 2017, the international auction houses are said to be “feeling bullish” once again. Last Friday, Christie’s announced that it had sold about £5.1 billion or $7.3 billion of...more