5 février 2015: Madame Anne Laure Bandle

Madame Anne Laure Bandle soutiendra, en vue de l'obtention du grade de docteure en droit, sa thèse intitulée:

« “Sleepers” - The Sale of Misattributed Artworks and Antiques at Auction under Swiss, English, and United States Law »

Jeudi 5 février 2015 – 10h.00
Salle M3050 - UNI MAIL

La séance est publique

Summary:

Auctions are a very well established market for the trade in artworks and antiques. Upon consignment, the auction house will appraise each lot in order to establish a sale catalogue. Such catalogues typically include the attribution of each lot offered for sale, i.e. the work’s creator or origins, date or period, and provenance. A sleeper is an artwork or antique that has been undervalued and mislabelled due to an expert’s oversight and consequently is undersold at auction. While forgeries and fakes become despised objects once correctly attributed, unmasked sleepers dramatically rise in esteem and value.

This thesis studies the phenomenon of sleepers at auction and more generally the importance of auction attributions in the art trade in light of the art market’s democratisation. It establishes the practical and legal position of a sleeper consignor and of art auction houses with regard to the sale and the dispute resolution process. In particular, it attempts to explore the consequences of the currently applicable legal regime for the sleeper consignor, the auction house, the courts, and the marketplace.