Tag: Cultural Property Issues

The UK did not adopt the EU Art and Antiquities Import Rules. This will change a lot in the art market, but it also offers various opportunities for companies in the UK. We republish an article by Cultural Property News about the consequences of this move.

Great Britain has a new cult sitcom that is now being broadcast in many countries – also in Germany and France: “Detectorists” deals with a topic that is rather controversial in some countries: searching objects by means of a metal detector.

Peter K. Tompa has opened his own law firm. He is an experienced specialist when it comes to cultural property issues, particularly those of interest to the numismatic trade.

Since the raid on 16 December 2020, we know for sure that the Big Maple Leaf was melted down. What does that mean for museums, coin dealers and collectors? Have our early warning systems that are meant to recover stolen coins become outdated?

How to press your point by an implied lie: the UNESCO campaign shows objects from the Metropolitan Museum as part of the decoration of a private interieur pretending the objects were stolen. Kate Fitz Gibbon discusses this story.

People are talking about the most extensive attack on artworks in post-war Germany: unknown persons splashed an unidentified liquid on objects displayed in several Berlin museums. Only now, three weeks after the attack, it became known.

The World Customs Organization report proves again that the illicit trade in antiquities is not a multi-billion-dollar industry at all – cultural heritage crime barely registers with 0.2 percent of all investigations and seizures of customs!

Museums are hit particularly hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, and around the world they are currently selling objects from their collections to survive. This goes against their own rules and triggers a heated debate.

When Greece demanded an ancient Greek object to be withdrawn from a public auction at Sotheby’s, the auction house answered with a law suit against the country. William Pearlstein analyzes this important case and what implication it has for collectors and the art market.

What is a museum? That’s what the International Council of Museums (ICOM) is debating so fiercely that some of their leaders have resigned. Do museums have a political mission? ICOM’s existence might depend on the answer to this very question.