Art & Finance Newsletter #27 - Two Van Goghs Blocked from Export
Good news for my old city of Chicago, NADA (New Art Dealers Association) will be hosting its inaugural fair there this fall at the same time of EXPO Chicago. Very cool to see Chicago stepping up its art market activities and moving onto the world stage. Well deserved!
On to the art market...
Search for UK buyer to pay £11.5m for Old Master drawing blocked from export
A Young Man Standing was purchased last year at Christie’s sale of works from the Rugby School collection on December 4.
But an export licence for the work has been blocked by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) which is calling for a new buyer to be found to pay £11.5m and keep it in the country.
The 11 x 5in (28 x 13cm) black chalk sketch had come to the fee-paying independent school as part of the impressive collection left to the institution in c.1880 by an alumnus, Matthew Holbeche Bloxam (1805-88). Bloxam was a distinguished antiquarian and also the nephew of Sir Thomas Lawrence, also a great collector of Old Masters.
It is one of only 28 surviving drawings by van Leyden and is believed to be the last example outside a museum.
AG - Export Blocked While Search for UK buyer for Old Master
AXA Insured Notre Dame Art
French insurer AXA SA could be on the hook for potential payouts tied to the devastating fire that ripped through Notre-Dame Cathedral, but the government’s ownership of the landmark means the insurance industry could be spared from significant losses tied to the blaze.
AXA provided some coverage to two of the companies working on construction projects at the cathedral in Paris, Europe Echafaudage and Le Bras Freres, and its art group was involved in the insurance of certain artifacts and ceremonial objects in the cathedral, a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. The structure itself, which is classified as a historical monument, is self-insured by the state, not by AXA, she said.
“These things can be repaired,” said Michael Angell, church operations director at Ecclesiastical Insurance Group, which has helped protect churches against fire risks for more than 130 years and doesn’t insure Notre Dame. “It’s just a very long job, it’s a very complicated job because of the experts that are needed, and it is undoubtedly a very expensive job.”
Bloomberg - AXA Insured Notre Dame Art
Two Stolen Van Goghs Go Back on display
Two Van Gogh paintings recovered from an Italian mafia-style gang have now been conserved and went back on display at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam on 17 April. View of the Sea at Scheveningen (1882) and Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen (1884-85) had been stolen from the museum in 2002 and were recovered three years ago on the outskirts of Naples.
Immediately after the theft the two pictures were probably removed from their frames by the thieves, Octave Durham and Henk Bieslijn. It may have been then that a corner of View of the Sea at Scheveningen was damaged and a corner broken off. This oil work is particularly fragile, since Van Gogh had painted it on paper, which was remounted on canvas in around 1950. The two thieves are said to have flushed the broken fragment down a toilet and to have thrown the frames into a canal.
The two Van Goghs survived remarkably well from their 14-year ordeal. They were wrenched from the museum’s walls; hauled through a broken window; and carried down a considerable height by the thieves who descended to the ground on a rope, landing with a jolt. The two men bundled the paintings into an escape vehicle, rushing off at speed. The pictures were then stored in conditions which would hardly have met the museum’s strict environmental controls.
Some months later the Van Goghs were transported right across Europe, to Castellammare di Stabia, a seaside resort just south of Naples - as part of a drugs deal. There they ended up in the home of the parents of the chief of the Naples Camorra gang, Raffaele Imperiale, hidden in a wall cavity next to the kitchen. Pieter van Os, a Dutch writer on art crime, describes the survival of the museum’s two paintings in reasonable condition as nothing short of “a miracle”.
The Art Newspaper - Two Van Goghs Back on Display
PCD Shanghai Event Was Successful
Excellent to meet a whole host of folks who flew in from the UK and Europe for the PCD dinner event in Shanghai this past week. There were several fiduciaries in attendance interested in a holistic art advisory service program.
Keep in mind how an art advisory service program may benefit your client base.
Happy to chat on the topic at anytime.
Speak soon,
Blake