We are pleased to share this article and press release from Art Recovery International (ARI).  ARI discovered the sale of a disputed painting, Madonna and Child, at Sotheby’s, notified law enforcement agencies, and the work was removed from the sale after the US District Attorney seized the work. Leila Amineddoleh was contacted by ARI to handle the asset forfeiture litigation while ARI worked to discover factual evidence about the art theft that occurred over 25 years ago.

Madonna and Child was jointly owned by a group of owners, but went missing 25 years ago.  Amineddoleh worked with ARI to represent two of the owners (their interest totaled one-third of the value of the work). Our law firm is thrilled with the outcome of the case because we successfully represented our clients in litigation and recovering their entire share of the work.

The value of Madonna and Child is unclear because of the work’s attribution. The last time it was offered for sale it had an estimated value of $800,000. However there is speculation that the work could be by the hand of fourteenth-century Florentine master Duccio di Buoninsegna. If the work is indeed by him, then the value of the painting is in the tens of millions of dollars. As written by Cynthia Saltzman in Old Masters, New World, “When, in 2004, the Metropolitan [Museum of Art] acquired Madonna and Child by Duccio di Buoninsenga, painted around the year 1300, they paid some $45 million for a painting no larger than a sheet of typing paper…It is one of only twelve Duccios in existence and, unless another is discovered, the last that will ever be sold.”
The owners plan to place the work for sale within the year.