A US judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit involving a Vincent van Gogh painting litigation involving a Brazilian art collector and the Detroit Institute of Art, AP reported.
At the center of the controversy is the Dutch artist’s painting The Novel Reader, dated 1888 and on display until Sunday at the Detroit Art Institute in Michigan.
However, a week ago, lawyers for Brazilian collector Gustavo Soter filed a lawsuit accusing the Detroit Museum of exhibiting a painting stolen from him and demanding its return.
In turn, the museum did not publicly disclose how it received the painting for the exhibition, saying only that it came from Brazil and does not appear on any list of stolen items.
The matter reached Judge George Karam Stee, but he ruled that the museum was not guilty of keeping the painting, which was illegally borrowed, and advised the parties to resolve the dispute on their own.
“Forcing an institution to bear the burden of proving in court that a foreign collector has the legal right to borrow an object before it can claim that the object is not subject to confiscation would be excruciating. I think that this would not contribute to the stated goal (of the law) and would probably have a retarding effect on cultural exchanges,” the magistrate justified.