UK Supreme Court case victory for Taylor Hampton Solicitors

Bruno Lachaux v Independent Print Limited and Evening Standard Limited.

Art Dealer’s heirs decry “ransom demand” for Degas stolen by Nazis

Theft Alert: 8 Stolen artworks from private residence in UK.

ARI have been hired to locate 8 stolen artworks from a private residence in Leicestershire on 26th March 2019 and 17th April 2019. The artworks include works by Gilbert & George, Howard Hodgkin, Sir Peter Blake, William Turnbull and Peter Phillips.
To read more about their details and descriptions see here

Movie. Hitler Contro Picasso E Gli Altri

Chris Marinello (Art Recovery specialist) hit the red carpet in Milan for a screening of the documentary film about Hitler’s attack on “degenerate art”, including Picasso. Chris features in the film

Sky Arts (May And June 2018)

Chris Marinello (Art Recovery specialist) will appear in a forthcoming series on the recreation of seven great paintings by Vermeer, Monet, Van Gogh, Franz Marc, Klimt, Lempicka and Sutherland that were either lost, stolen or destroyed in the 20th Century. The programme follows a team from Factum Arte as they work to recreate each painting

25th August 2017 – Francis Eastaugh ( our ADDG specialist in Forensics at Art Analysis and Research) was interviewed by Sky News Tonight.

Watch the video-click to see the discussion on the prevalence of forgeries in the art market, following the Jackson Pollock fakes scandal. Investigated by the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR).

Jackson pollock Fraud

Jackson Pollock Fraud investigated by the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) see Artnet’s article here by Eileen Kinsella dated 24th August 2017.

Pandora Mather-Lees interviewed by the BBC on the market need for art due diligence.

Pandora Mather-Lees interviewed by the BBC on the market need for art due diligence.

Podcast – listen to podcasts involving our ADDG members:

Frances Oglesby, global operations manager of Artive, joins us to discuss the non-profit organization that aims to provide a universal, digital and searchable archive for works of art and cultural property. 

Ariane Moser, COO of Artive, and Frank Morey, CEO of Virtus Risk Management, joins us to speak about the Art Due Diligence Group, a new due diligence service in which they both belong, designed for the art trade.

Italian Cultural Ministry revokes export licence for an important painting

Italy

Christopher Marinello has been instructed to help resolve a potential dispute concerning the revoking of an export licence previously granted by the Italian Cultural Ministry. The case concerns a rare portrait by Gerard, sold by a leading Gallery to a US Museum. To read more see here

Cases
Read about the art cases our ADDG members and their respective companies have been involved in:

GOLDFINGER: THEFT ALERT – 007’S ASTON MARTIN

Christopher Marinello (art recovery specialist) has been hired to hunt for James Bond’s iconic 1964 Aston Martin DB5. It was stolen in 1997 from the hangar at Boca Raton Airport in Florida and has not resurfaced yet. 007’s Aston was in the movie Goldfinger

ART ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH (AA&R) WORK ON COLLABORATIVE PROJECT WITH THE MUSEUM OF LUDWIG AND THE RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE RESEARCH PROJECT

AA&R’s forensic team have recently worked in collaboration with the Museum Ludwig. The project has been generously supported by the Russian Avant-Garde Research Project (RARP) and the Foundation Ludwig. The Team have completed analysis on a group of paintings by famous Russian artists Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov in the Museum Ludwig collection. Through this collaborative project, the forensic team have helped the Museum to build up knowledge and research about these artists and also developed a new approach for research and study on the artists.

THREE OF OUR ADDG TEAM MEMBERS HEAD TO THE HIGH COURT IN AN ART LAW CASE

Three of our team work together as Christopher Marinello (art recovery specialist), Daniel Taylor of Taylor Hampton Solicitors (litigation specialist) and James Petts (36 Art and Commercial barrister) headed to the High Court in a dispute concerning a high value sculpture by one of the most famous female living artists. To read about the case see the Bloomberg article here

Art Analysis & Research provides scientific investigation in collaboration with the Josef Albers catalogue raisonné project

The Art Analysis & Research (AA&R) team has recently worked alongside the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, to analyse ten works attributed to Josef Albers. Their findings provide a greater understanding of what makes an Albers artwork unique and will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné. Nica Gutman Rieppi, AA&R’s Principal Investigator in New York, views works by Josef Albers at the TEFAF New York Spring Art Fair.

Two newly rediscovered paintings by Rembrandt that were examined by AA&R will now appear together at the Rembrandt House Museum Exhibition called “Special Guests” .

The two newly rediscovered paintings are “The Portrait of Petronella Buys” and the “Man with a Sword.” Both paintings were painted by Rembrandt and a member of his workshop. These works have not been shown together in public for decades. The works have been brought together as they were recently acquired by collectors Thomas S Kaplan and Daphne Recanati Kaplan as part of their Leiden Collection. Following further research on these paintings and forensic investigation by the AA&R team, these works are now on display at the Rembrandt House Museum Exhibition called “Special Guests” that is on until 2nd September 2018. Through various imaging techniques, some very interesting discoveries were made about both works. Man with a Sword was long thought to be a work by Rembrandt but scholars dismissed this attribution in 1970. Through recent research it has been discovered that Rembrandt not only originally conceived of the portrait but he painted it too.

Chris Marinello (of Art Recovery International Ltd.) has been hired to locate a missing painting called “Le Fort Carré`a Antibes” by Nicolas de Staël.

Painted in 1955 it is an oil on canvas, 23.5 x 34.6 cm. The painting was created in Antibes, France in 1955 just before the artist’s death. The work was discovered missing on 12 April 2018 from a private collection in London.

AUTHENTICATION OF JACKSON POLLOCK PAINTINGS

AA&R is currently examining a number of paintings attributed to Jackson Pollock in their London and New York laboratories. AA&R has a unique ability to test works by this artist. Several years ago, the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, permitted the team to take samples from 17 commercial paint cans, brushes, dipsticks and turkey basters that Pollock used and that are preserved in his studio. The scientists identified the pigments and binding media, which now provide a baseline standard for comparison.

KING CHARLES I’s PAINTINGS

Over the years, Art Analysis & Research has verified the provenance of several paintings from the collection of King Charles I, like those that are currently on display in the magnificent exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in the UK. To read more about how AA&R is able to do this with advanced imaging see the pdf in the box to the right. For a link to the RA Exhibition click below.

January 2018 – Christopher Marinello (ADDG’s specialist in Art Recovery and Restitution matters) is interviewed by Apollo Magazine on the Gurlitt Nazi-looted art hoard

Discover Chris’s involvement in recovering artworks for his clients arising out of this extraordinary case.

17 November 2017– Nica Rieppi of Art Analysis and Research was interviewed by TIME Magazine – following the sale of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi.

AA&R’s specialist Nica Rieppi conducted forensic work on the artwork over a 4 year period. In the article Nica Rieppi describes specific forensic techniques used to help authentic, what is now recorded as the world’s most expensive painting. (Art Analysis and Research is the ADDG’s forensic science group member).

25th July 2017 – Stolen Ceremonial Sword recovered from London Auction House

Read how our ADDG specialist for art recovery – Christopher Marinello (of Art Recovery International LLC.) successfully recovered The Mark Provincial Sword of Kent, a special ceremonial sword that belongs to the Provincial Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons of Kent, from an Auction House in London.
June 2017 – Art Recovery assists in recovery of a valuable stolen painting from owners in Northern Ireland.

Articles – see interviews of our ADDG specialists
in the press:

Ariane Moser, COO of ARTIVE (title checking database and provenance specialists) interviewed by Holistic Auction (art publication for the Russian art market) on due diligence in art auctions.

Fake and stolen artworks beset many areas of the art market and Ariane explains what buyers should look out for and what basic due diligence steps can be taken to seek to minimise the risks. 

20 February 2018 – Pandora Mather-Lees (ADDG’s art consultant) was interviewed by Superyacht News

Regarding the forthcoming Art at Sea symposium. Discover Pandora’s training programme for crew to understand the issue of looking after art. For more information about the Symposium please see our Education and Training page.

17th February 2018 – Pandora Mather-Lees (ADDG’s art consultant)

Organiser and speaker at the Art at Sea Symposium and her event is mentioned in the Antiques Trade Gazette.

February 2018 – Christopher Marinello (ADDG’s specialist in Art Recovery and Restitution matters) is interviewed by the Washington Post

In relation to the Louvre’s decision to display Nazi looted art to find their rightful owners. “This is the type of thing that should have been done in the late 1990s”

April 2017- Christopher Marinello comments on art recovery

and the theft of £57 million worth of Chinese jade artefacts from the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge.

Articles – see our published content by ADDG members in Fine Arts magazines

8th November 2017 – Pandora Mather-Lees (ADDG’s art consultant) attended Deloitte’s Art & Finance Conference in Milan 2017 and has reviewed the conference in the Winter Issue 2017 of Art and Museum Magazine at pages 5-7.

In this issue Pandora sets out the ambit of the panel discussions and notes the core findings arising out of the 5th Art and Finance Report. Due-diligence, transparency, fakes and forgeries were among the key market concerns identified. (This Magazine follows the PDF 59 page Winter issue of Family Office Magazine. Scroll down 36 pages to the Art and Museum Magazine.)

September 2017 – Our ADDG members attended the Art Business Conference in London.

Read our Pandora Mather-Lees review in Family Office Elite’s – Art and Museum Magazine at pages 24-28.

May 2017 – Three of our ADDG members attended the London Business School’s Art Investment Conference

Read our Pandora Mather-Lees (ADDG’s administrative and art business services adviser) article on the panel discussions on a range of different art investment issues in the Summer Issue of Family Office Elite’s – Art and Museum Magazine at pages 8-9 of the Magazine.

See our article ‘How risky is the business of buying Fine Art’ in Art and Museum Magazine, Spring Issue 2017.

Art & Museum Magazine dedicated to all aspects of Fine Art including, Artists, Forensics, Business of Art, Auctions, Fairs, Insurance, Museums and more

8th February 2019 – Pandora Mather-Lees was interviewed in the Times

– “How Billionaires protect their art from seagulls” by Lucy Holden
Read More Here The Times February 2019

4th February 2019

– Pandora Mather-Lees’s training on art on superyachts features in an article on Artnet “What worries Today’s Billionaires? Protecting Priceless Art From Flying Champagne Corks on Their Superyachts”, article by Henri Neuendorf See article here – https://news.artnet.com/art-world/superyacht-art-conservation-course-1455877

Announcements

Artive Fundraising Initiatives, Summer 2019 (ongoing)

As a nonprofit organization Artive exists to protect cultural property, imagining a world free of illicit threats against our world’s art and cultural heritage. Our mission is to help protect the world’s cultural heritage – looted and illicitly transferred, stolen, missing, and otherwise claimed – by recording and indexing data for posterity and preservation through the use of technology. This mission is more than “about us”, this is everyone’s story as well and we believe that our cultural heritage can only be protected if we unite our responsibilities and resources, raising awareness together.

Daniel Taylor interviewed by Corporate Vision Magazine

Following on from Taylor Hampton’s award by Corporate Vision Magazine for Media Law firm of the Year 2019, Daniel Taylor was recently interviewed by Corporate Vision Magazine about the firm’s presence in the media sphere, membership of the Art Due Diligence Group and what makes the organisation a success. Daniel explained that fast reaction times are now required of a law firm given the advent of digital publications and social media where defamatory or unwelcome comments can be rapidly diffused. To read the interview see here.

Taylor Hampton Solicitors win legal awards for defamation and reputation management specialism

We are proud to announce that ADDG’s litigation firm specialist Taylor Hampton solicitors have won accolades for their specialism in defamation and media law. Winning Lawyer International’s Legal 100’s “Best Defamation Lawyer of the Year” and the Global Awards “Media Lawyer of the Year 2018” awarded by Corporate Livewire.


Launch of the ADDG and associated articles in arts press:

The launch of our new service reported by Laura Chesters in The Antiques Trade Gazette on 22nd February 2017.

The Art Due Diligence Group (ADDG) comprises a network of legal advisors and firms who have teamed up to provide a range of services from title claim checks, recovery of stolen artworks and provenance research to dispute resolution, insurance and security services.


The launch party of the
ADDG Group.

The Art Due Diligence Group (ADDG) has been formed to respond to a tangible market need for full and proper due diligence in transactions relating to high value objects and collections of fine art. With the purpose of supporting a safe, smooth and cost-efficient trading environment, the group consists of a specially selected team of experts with years of experience in the art market.

Jessica Franses was interviewed by Laura Chesters for The Antiques Trade Gazette regarding visiting TEFAF 2017 ( 4th March 2017).

Launch of Artive - not for profit art loss database checking service.