Auctioneer withdraws works from sale because of ongoing dispute over whether Portugal can sell them to buyers abroad
Christie's auction house cancelled the sale of 85 paintings by the Catalan artist Joan Miró after an uproar over whether debt-ridden Portugal, their legal owner, could sell the treasures to buyers abroad.
On Tuesday the auctioneers withdrew them from a London sale even though a Lisbon court threw out a suit by opposition lawmakers, prosecutors and the public trying to block the offer saying the government had violated the rules on classifying the artwork.
The Miró collection, estimated at more than €35m (£29m), came into state hands in 2008 when Portugal nationalised the failed Banco Português de Negócios (BPN) that owned them.
More than 9,200 people have signed an online petition to keep it in Portugal, despite the drastic austerity measures imposed in the past three years under an international bailout.
"The legal uncertainties created by this ongoing dispute mean that we are not able to safely offer the works for sale," Christie's said only hours before the two-day sale was to start.
The paintings are being offered by the state holding company Parvalorem, which is in charge of minimising the impact of BPN's old debts and bad loans on public accounts.
The court ruled the sale could not be stopped but noted that the state culture secretary's decision had not sought proper authorisation to send the paintings to London last week.
The most highly-valued piece in the collection, Women and Birds, dating from 1968, was expected to fetch between £4m-7m.
Critics of the planned sale said the state had ignored "the immeasurable immaterial value" of the collection to Portugal.
A Socialist parliamentarian and one of the authors of the appeal, Gabriela Canavilhas, said: "We are certain that any proper classification by experts would have not allowed most of the paintings to leave Portugal.
"This is another proof that this government thinks only in accounting terms and values nothing else." She added that some of the paintings could be auctioned in the future, but only within the legal framework.
Christie's sale, entitled The Art of the Surreal, was due to go ahead on Tuesday with paintings by René Magritte, Salvador Dalí and other famous surrealists and finish on Wednesday.
source Guardian
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