Displaying items by tag: Trial

A thief who stole £800,000 worth of rare Imperial Russian court Fabergé objects and jewelery from Christie's Auctioneers last December, has gone on trial in London. Richard Tobin, 45, a Glaswegian confessed to the theft from the west end auction house. 

Southwark Crown Court were told that there is still no sign of the missing items. Jack Talbot the suspect's defence lawyer added: "He accepts he took the items. It may be part of the mitigation that he did not know their value." Judge Owen Davies explained to the defendant : "What happened to the property is uppermost in the court's mind. "The court does not have time to consider carefully your case so you will be appearing via video link on April 8. "You will be remanded in custody and you face a long prison sentence."

Would Picasso have donated 271 works to an electrician who worked for him for a few years in south-east France?

A French court has begun to contemplate that mystery as the three-day trial begins of Pierre Le Guennec and his wife, Danielle. They claim the artist or his wife gave them the 180 lithographs, collages, and paintings and 91 drawings in about 1970 when Le Guennec began working as a general handyman at Picasso’s estate. Picasso heirs and a state prosecutor describe the couple’s account as ridiculous.

A district court in Düsseldorf ruled on Tuesday that German art adviser Helge Achenbach must pay €19.4 million in damages to the heirs of Aldi Supermarket heir Berthold Albrecht, the DPA reports. The ruling culminates a civil court case brought against Achenbach following allegations that he defrauded Albrecht of up to €23 million (see Fraud Claim Against Art Adviser). The art adviser is also part of a criminal trial, taking place in Essen. He has confessed to portions of the allegations (see Achenbach Gives Surprise Partial-Confession in Fraud Case and Achenbach Confesses to Yet More Fraud).

Meanwhile, German auction house Van Ham has won the rights to sell artworks still owned by the adviser's bankrupt company, Achenbach Art Consulting.

The Toledo Museum of Art announced that it will return a nearly 1,000-year-old bronze sculpture of the Hindu god Ganesha to the Government of India.

The Ganesha was purchased in 2006 from art dealer Subhash Kapoor, who is currently awaiting trial in India on charges of illegal exportation, criminal conspiracy and forgery.

Research conducted by the Museum, with the assistance and cooperation of the Indian Consulate General, Dnyaneshwar M. Mulay, and the Ambassador of India, Dr. S. Jaishankar, and their respective representatives, led Museum Director Brian Kennedy to recommend the return to the Museum’s Art Committee. That committee voted on Aug. 21 to deaccession the Ganesha from the collection and facilitate its return.

In what has been termed a “document dump”, previously undisclosed information and inflammatory allegations in two of the Knoedler gallery art-forgery lawsuits are now public for the first time. Last Wednesday, Knoedler, its former director Ann Freedman, the head of a related holding company Michael Hammer, and a former employee Jaime Andrade filed motions seeking to dismiss the lawsuits. The next day, the collectors Eleanore and Domenico De Sole and John Howard struck back, arguing that their cases must go to trial and accusing Freedman of perjury “on multiple occasions, including before this court”, a charge she vigorously denies.

More than 500 pages of legal arguments and thousands of pages of exhibits are now before Manhattan’s federal court.

The trial continued Thursday in a lawsuit brought by three trustees of the Robert Rauschenberg Revocable Trust, who are suing the artist's foundation for $60 million in fees for services rendered.

The worth of Rauschenberg's work was again the focus.

The trustees are Bennet Grutman, who was also Rauschenberg's accountant; Darryl Pottorf, close friend and companion and executor of the artist's will; and Bill Goldston, who partnered with the artist for a fine art print publishing company.

The presumed mastermind of a brazen art theft from a French Riviera museum involving four paintings by Monet, Sisley and Breughel denied any role as he went on trial on Monday.

The Miami-based Bernard Ternus, who is in his sixties, was sentenced in the United States to five years in prison in 2008 over the theft at Nice's Jules Cheret museum a year earlier.

Transferred to France last year after serving his sentence, Ternus -- who is being held in custody -- told the court in Aix-en-Provence in southern France that he had been framed.

A portrait of actress Farrah Fawcett by Pop artist Andy Warhol is the subject of a heated legal battle. Actor Ryan O’Neal, who had a long relationship with Fawcett, is fighting the University of Texas at Austin for ownership of the work.

When she passed away in 2009, Fawcett left her art collection to the University of Texas, her alma mater. However, O’Neal is claiming that Warhol had personally given him the silkscreen of Fawcett. The case, which went to trial Wednesday, is expected to take two weeks to resolve.

Warhol’s portrait of Fawcett is estimated to be worth $30 million.