Blog

-Sahibnoor Singh Sidhu When investigators from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art to execute a series of seizure warrants, the action signaled a structural shift in the administration of cultural heritage. The items detailed in the warrants included a marble head from the first-century Roman period, a bronze statuette dating back two millennia, and an ancient Egyptian gold diadem adorned with ram heads. These objects were being collected as evidence […]

by Sadie Ovenden When Cord released its Album ‘91 SS’26 campaign, internet commentary quickly observed that, with its symmetrical framing and saturated vintage colour palette, it resembled a scene from Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited (2007). Cord describes the collection as an ode to childhood summer holidays in India, to train journeys, family travel, vibrant markets, festive colours and traditional craft practices. The collection draws explicitly upon Indian visual culture, through hand embroidery, appliqué, smocking and patchwork […]

The reliance of the international art market on informal networks and unverified representations continues to create opportunities for sophisticated title fraud. The criminal conviction of Thomas Doyle in the Southern District of New York regarding the unauthorized disposition of Gustave Courbet’s Mother and Child on a Hammock highlights the legal risks inherent in transaction structures that lack objective verification. By examining the mechanics of the deception, the statutory frameworks governing title allocation, and the comparative […]

The enactment of the Colorado Artist Company Act marks a shift in the intersection of corporate law and intellectual property law. Historically, companies have prioritised shareholder wealth maximisation, leaving creative professionals vulnerable during equity financing and corporate dissolution. This legislation introduces a distinct corporate form, the Artist Corporation, which mandates permanent creator majorities and safeguards moral and economic rights. This blog evaluates the mechanism of the Colorado statute, contextualises the historical imbalances in creative contract […]

The acquisition of art has been romanticized as a pursuit of the soul, an aesthetic dialogue between the collector and the creator. However, for those of us who spend their time engaged in law, art is also an asset class. The recent taxation of the gains from the sale of a Pumpkin sculptor held as part of a collector’s private collection as business income, has sent a tremor through the collecting community. The core of […]

Specialty Museums in India Museums have long been regarded as the custodians of a history’s essence. In India, multiple layers of cultural and social development have occurred over millennia, meaning that the traditional museum format cannot possibly accommodate for the unique, niche and often underrepresented side of history sometimes out of sheer paucity of space. This led to the birth of specialty museums that dive deep into those niche narratives and stories. However, budget constraints […]