Displaying items by tag: export ban

German public broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), which controversially put some of its art collection up for sale to pay off debts, has been banned from exporting two paintings by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Max Beckmann.

A spokesperson for North-Rhine Westphalia's culture minister Ute Schäfer confirmed that the state filed a request to add the works to the list of nationally important cultural goods, Rheinische Post reported.

The very first eyewitness representation of Niagara Falls, a 1762 topographical watercolor by Thomas Davies, is at risk of being exported from the UK unless a buyer can be found to match the £151,800 asking price.

In order to provide a last chance to keep it in the UK, Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has placed a temporary export bar on the watercolor by Captain Thomas Davies, An East View of the Great Cataract of Niagara.

The topographical watercolor of Niagara Falls by Captain Thomas Davies provides the very first accurate portrait of this iconic landscape, which has become one of the most recognizable views in the world. It was also the earliest inclusion of Niagara’s ever-present rainbow.

A Picasso worth over $37 million that was seized from a yacht off the French island of Corsica has been transferred to a Madrid museum.

The painting, which was subject to a Spanish export ban, had been seized by French customs at the end of July.

On Tuesday, a team of Spanish police experts in national heritage flew to Corsica to retrieve the painting, and escorted it to the Reina Sofia Museum, which houses Pablo Picasso's large anti-war masterpiece Guernica, a police statement said.

French custom officials in the island of Corsica have seized a 24 million-euro ($27.4 million) masterpiece by Pablo Picasso that was banned from leaving Spain where it is considered a national treasure.

Corsican authorities say in a statement Tuesday they were tipped off about an attempted smuggling of the prized 1906 painting, "Head of a Young Woman," to Switzerland.

The UK is fighting to keep a Paul Cézanne landscape painting in the country following its sale for £13.5 million ($20.5 million) at Christie's London during its $222.8 million Impressionist and modern art sale in February.

At the auction, "Vue sur L'Estaque et Le Château d'If" (1883–85) barely topped its pre-sale estimate of £8–12 million ($13–19 million), and was sold to Nancy Whyte, an American art advisor.

The French government has imposed an export ban on three items which descendants of France's former royal family consigned to auction at Sotheby's Paris, Yahoo News reports.

France's culture minister Fleur Pellerin designated the items as pieces of “national treasure" to stop them from going under the hammer and from leaving the country.

One of Gustav Klimt's most famous paintings should not be returned to the heirs of its original Jewish owners, an Austrian panel has ruled.

The "Beethoven Frieze" was looted by the Nazis but returned to the family of Jewish industrialist August Lederer after World War Two.

But it was subject to an export ban.

The heirs had argued this forced Lederer's son Erich to sell the work at a cut-rate price. The museum where it is now on display disputed this claim.

A temporary export ban has been placed on an early 17th-century painting, one of the most refined of the paradise landscapes by Flemish artist Jan Brueghel the Elder, in an attempt to keep it in the UK.

"The Garden of Eden With the Fall of Man" (1613), an oil on copper work measuring just 23.7cm by 36.8 cm, was set to go overseas after selling at Sotheby’s in London in July for £6.8 million, more than double the top estimate. It had been acquired by Algernon Percy, the fourth Duke of Northumberland, in 1853 and had hung in Alnwick Castle but was recently consigned for sale by the present Duke of Northumberland.

In 17th-century France, Charles Le Brun was as hot as any artist could be. He created work for the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, for the Galerie d’Apollon in the Louvre, for Hôtel Lambert on Île St. Louis, for the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte and for much of Versailles. Louis XIV declared him “the greatest French artist of all time.” Whatever he produced made an impact.

Now, after a nail-biting three months for officials at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Le Brun’s presence will make a difference there, too.

Britain’s Culture Minister, Ed Vaizey, has placed a temporary export bar on one of Sir Anthony Van Dyck’s finest works dating from his time in the UK. The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest suggested that a hold be placed on the self-portrait, giving potential buyers time to raise the £12,500,000 needed to keep the work in the UK.

Van Dyck played a pivotal role in the development of portraiture in Britain during the time he spent there (1620-21, 1632-35, 1635-41) and the artist was highly regarded by King Charles I who awarded him knighthood, a home and an annuity in 1632. Although Van Dyck produced a number of self-portraits during his career, the work in question is widely regarded as one of his best and acknowledged as being a source of inspiration to other artists.

Vaizey said, “We have recently had a number of successes in preventing national treasures from being permanently exported from the UK thanks to the generosity of donors and the fundraising efforts of our museums and galleries. I hope that placing a temporary export bar on this magnificent painting will allow time for a UK buyer to come forward and ensure it remains here in the UK.”

The decision on the export license application for the painting will be deferred until February 13, 2014. This period may be extended until July 13, 2014 if a serious intention to raise funds to purchase the painting is made.