Yesterday, an appeals court in France dismissed a lawsuit brought by Peggy Guggenheim’s heirs against the New York Foundation that manages her collection in Venice, the New York Times reports.
The heirs sought to revoke the collector’s donation of her art collection and home to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation because, they said, the institution had failed to obey the conditions of her bequest. In addition to altering the original display, the foundation desecrated her burial site by displaying new acquisitions nearby, the family members complained.
This is the third time her descendants have tried to wrest legal control over how her art is displayed, with similarly unsuccessful lawsuits dating back to the 1990s. Their most recent case started in 2013 but was dismissed by a Paris court last year; the heirs then appealed the decision.
In a statement, the Guggenheim Foundation sad it is “proud to have faithfully carried out the wishes of Peggy Guggenheim for more than 30 years by preserving her collection intact in the Palazzo, restoring and maintaining the Palazzo as a public museum”.
For more on this story, see our earlier coverage:
Heirs of Peggy Guggenheim sue New York foundationGuggenheim Foundation refutes family members’ accusationsLawsuit brought by Peggy Guggenheim’s grandchildren dismissed