Leonardo da Vinci

“I have offended God and mankind because my work didn’t reach the quality it should have”

This is an extraordinary quote from probably the most highly valued artist in the world as recent discoveries of Leonardo’s lost masterpieces is the stuff of dreams in the art world and continues to send exciting shock waves through the trade.

The last year could be described as Da Vinci’s year. With only 14 known paintings executed by his hand, the discovery of possibly two more lost masterpieces – Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi ( Christ the Saviour of the World) an errie counterpart to the Mona Lisa and now the Prado’s discovery of their own version of the Mona Lisa has kept the art world and art lovers enthralled.

What two Mona Lisa’s I hear you ask? – well some experts now dispute the Prado’s version is by Leonardo and it is thought instead to be by one of his many pupils. That story no doubt will unfold as the experts now debate the attribution and make or break their reputations in their field.

We have also seen the relatively recent recovery in 2007 of the Duke of Buccleuch’s version of the Madonna Yarwinder, again thought to be by a pupil but valued at £20 million because of the under-drawings (that cannot be seen) but are nonetheless thought to be by the hand of Leonardo. This painting was stolen in a raid at the Duke’s home Drumlanrig Castle, Dumfriesshire in 2003 by two axe-wielding men and was recovered in a dramatic swoop by police on Glasgow law firm, a HBJ Gateley Wareing.

The Scottish Law courts were kept very busy, the last of the three prosecution trials collapsing last year for the attempted extortion from the Buccleuch family of £4.25 million pounds for their painting. And what a complicated plot that entailed – with private investigators working for insurers providing money to a lawyer that was handed to “middle men” who claim to have recovered the painting from the thieves. The Yarwinder trials cost the tax payer a staggering £1 million legal aid bill and £984,636 in legal expenses for the accused was claimed. The thieves were never caught and the cases resulted in “not proven” verdicts against the alleged extorters, who have since sold their story to the press.

There are lots of criminal stories like this in the art world, even the former Director of Programmes of the Tate Britain Gallery, London– Sandy Nairn (now Director of the National Portrait Gallery) has a new book out about his own part played in the negotiation to recover from thieves the two stolen Turner paintings valued at £24 million that had been on loan in an exhibition in Germany in 1994. It took 8 years to recover the paintings from Serbian criminals and there has been much interesting debate over the Tate Gallery’s and Board of Trustees part in a £3.5 million ransom paid for the paintings.

The leading Leonardo expert Martin Kemp risked his reputation recently as he supported the discovery of La Bella Principessa as a work by Leonardo based also on what was believed to be a fingerprint of the artist on the painting itself.

Technical discoveries are leading to new discoveries. The technical discovery in the case – whether or not the picture contained Leonardo’s fingerprint embedded in the vellum was hotly disputed. The sellers and prospective buyers of the painting were at complete odds over the attribution and the auctioneers had to form a view; unfortunately for the art trade it was not a Leonardo.

The Italian Leonardo experts and leading heritage conservationists still appear to remain locked in a row over the 30 year attempts to find Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari. (The painting he famously competed with Michelangelo over, as the two giants in their time strived to produce the best work of art on opposing walls in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.)

The Italians have sought technology feats to seek to locate the painting believed to be hidden somewhere behind Georgio Vasari’s important battle scene painting, the Battle of Marciano in Val di Chiana, painted in 1563. A breakthrough is the belief that they have found a “code” – as somewhere behind the Vasari painting a wall conceals another wall, behind which it is hoped that the original Leonardo work rests.

Magistrates are now involved and the law is now being used to try to block attempts to drill through Vasari’s painting damaging an important artist’s work for the sake of recovering Leonardo’s masterpiece. 150 major galleries and art historians internationally have tried to petition the Cultural Ministry to stop what some believe to be “Dan Brown madness”. The Cultural Ministry have permitted the search; such is the importance of Leonardo.

And of course the National Gallery has just held the exhibition of the year – where 9 of Leonardo’s paintings, numerous drawings and works by his students were presented together for the first time – and it was a sell out exhibition.

The twist and turns of some of the paintings by this one artist perhaps demonstrates the significance of discoveries for the trade.

Discoveries of high valued paintings keep the art market alive, art is an investment and in a recession the art market often booms as investors choose instead to put their money into art. The discovery of a major works lead museum visitor numbers to soar, which in turn leads to a huge revenue increases for the museums – the Mona Lisa alone attracts 6 million visitors to the Louvre each year.

The academics and experts on a particular artist make their living off the back of writing scholarly articles and books and enjoy educating us about the newly discovered artist’s work and of course museum exhibitions and touring exhibitions attract visitor’s world wide, museum shops sell their catalogues and products and the art dealers and auction houses make a boon, the list goes on.

What does any of this mean for the legal world – lawyers are never far away from these events, they work behind the scenes, advising, negotiating, drafting, arbitrating and mediating disputes. Living artists and art galleries exhibiting their works rely on legal contracts to protect the artist and ensure the art is protected in the exhibition spaces. Copyright protects against the mass reproduction of an artist’s works. Auction houses seek legal advice to protect themselves against the risks of being sued for misattribution or any negligent misstatement. Rules and regulations bind all manner of agreements and increasingly when the stakes are high, dealers, artists, experts, museums, auction houses look to their lawyers for legal protection.

While cases rarely go to court there have been more cases before the courts in recent years; legal title is often disputed and there have been several interesting restitution cases involving works stolen by the Nazis that have found their way into National museums and private galleries as family members use the law to seek to recover their stolen heirlooms. This has proved particularly interesting jurisdictionally as US courts creatively find ways of making binding rulings that can allow for recovery in foreign jurisdictions.

There have also been cultural heritage cases, where Museums and Governments seek to reclaim their heritage from private galleries and small art dealers dare take on these Governments as they seek to argue their entitlement to sell the objects.

Please watch this space as I seek to venture into this often closed but frequently glamorous world and attempt to provide a practical guide on what services lawyers can provide to the art market and try to bring to your attention some interesting key cases and developments in this emerging legal landscape.