The Paris administrative court ruled in favor of the owner of a Da Vinci drawing estimated at several million euros and ordered the Minister of Culture to allow its sale abroad, we learned from a press release from court on Friday. “The Paris administrative court orders the Minister of Culture”, at the time Roselyne Bachelot, today Rima Abdul Malak, “to issue the export certificate allowing the definitive exit from French territory of the study attributed to Leonardo da Vinci,” said the press release.
This is a disappointment for the State, which initially wanted to acquire the study representing the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, a rare drawing by Leonardo da Vinci held by a private person. After trying to buy it, the Ministry of Culture opposed in 2021 the owner’s desire to sell the work abroad, arguing that it could have been stolen and that a complaint to this effect was filed at the end of 2020.
The court, however, considered that “the elements invoked by the Minister of Culture do not constitute serious and consistent presumptions of the illicit origin of the property”. “A big victory,” for Olivier Baratelli, lawyer for the owner. “This exceptional drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, long deprived of exhibition to the general public due to far-fetched claims, will finally be able to be presented and sold,” he told AFP. According to his lawyer, the owner, now in his eighties, should soon entrust his work to Christie’s. Asked by AFP, the ministry did not respond immediately.
This decision is part of a standoff dating back several years between the Ministry of Culture and Jean. B, the retired doctor who owns the work. Forgotten for almost sixty years, without anyone suspecting the identity of its author, the drawing, no larger than a pocket handkerchief, was discovered in 2016 during a move.
After several appraisals, the value of the study attributed to Leonardo da Vinci exploded and reached a range of 8 to 12 million euros. The Ministry of Culture quickly classified the work as a national treasure, a procedure which made it possible to prohibit its export and gave it thirty months to acquire it for the benefit of the Louvre Museum.
In July 2019, the ministry made an offer of 10 million euros to Jean B., which he refused. Unable to match the 15 million euros of the latest estimate, the State renounced the acquisition but subsequently refused to issue an export certificate, arguing that the work could come from a theft . The drawing was also the subject of disputes between its owner and the Tajan auction house which had carried out its first appraisal. A dispute finally resolved by an amicable agreement.
