The heirs of the famous Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, the Kunstmuseum Basel and the Government of the Canton of Basel-Stadt announced today that they have agreed to resolve the Heirs’ claim to works by Malevich (two gouaches “Landscape with Red Houses” and “The Washing Woman” and a series of approximately 60 drawings made by Malevich and his assistants) that have been in the possession of the Kunstmuseum Basel.

Link coming soon.

Machu Pichu. Photo courtesy of egroj, via everystockphoto.

All’s well that ends well.

The dispute was resolved through two separate agreements. The first, between Yale and the Peruvian government, established that the university would return all of the objects by the end of 2012. The second established a partnership between Yale and the San Antonio Abad University in Cuzco to share stewardship of the collection. The schools will also collaborate on academic research.

Via NPR. Some background here and here.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will return to the French a famed piece of art that was stolen nearly a century ago.

Via The Seattle Times.

Renoir day.

Representatives for the estate of a Chicago couple who owned a landscape painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Illinois last month after an attempt to sell the work at auction was blocked when the auction house discovered evidence that the work might be one of several sold under duress in Europe in the 1930s because of the Nazi regime.

A United States District Court in Washington has rejected Hungary’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed against it and its museums and a university for artworks looted from the heirs of the Jewish banker and renowned collector Baron Mor Lipot Herzog.

Via the paper of record.

Billionaire Franco-American art dealer, Guy Wildenstein, has been formally accused of fraud after 30 valuable paintings and sculptures that had been missing for decades were discovered in a room of his family’s institute in Paris. The works found include several allegedly looted by the Nazis.

Via Mutual Art.

Russia has banned loans to U.S. museums in retaliation for a U.S. district court ruling mandating that Russia return a trove of religious books and manuscripts to the Jewish group Chabad. According to the Los Angeles Times, “[t]he Russian cultural ban already has aborted one U.S. museum exhibition, forced the indefinite postponement of another, and could prevent LACMA from showing 38 artworks in a major exhibition on Islamic art set to open June 5.” The ban has also affected other major cultural institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum and The J. Paul Getty Museum.

The FBI’s Art Crime Team. Thirteen agents stationed across the United States to investigate everything from art counterfeiting to thefts of cultural objects. The Art Crime Unit was formed after the looting of Iraq’s national museum in 2003. Unlike Hollywood films of sexy and handsome art thieves, members of this unit cite that for the most part, art thieves and criminals are nothing but “mopes.”

Via Chicago Sun Times.

Spanish police have published a catalog of high value stolen art and precious objects in the hope of reuniting them with their rightful owners. You can view the catalog here (in Spanish). Picasso is in there, page 6.

Via The Seattle Times.

After works of art plundered by the Nazis ended up in Switzerland, a report commissioned by the government says more needs to be done to trace the origins of these objects. The report, published this week by the Federal Culture Office, said access to the results of provenance research and to relevant archives must be simplified.

Via Swiss Info.