Miami, Florida (GenevaLunch) – Artworks worth some $6 million were confiscated by US federal marshals at Art Basel Miami Beach shortly before the VIP opening Thursday 3 December, to settle an insurance dispute. The paintings, including works by Joan Miro and Edgar Degas, were part of the booth belonging to one of Zurich’s well-known art galleries, Gmurzynska. The art fair told Bloomberg it was the first time artworks have been seized for a court case. By later in the day the two parties said they had settled the dispute and the art would be back on Friday, but no details were provided.

The gallery has been in a dispute with former Wall Street raider Asher Edelman over a painting he loaned the gallery for the 2007 Miami fair, the largest contemporary art show in the US.

Edelman in October 2009 won a US lawsuit against the Zurich gallery. He had asked for $250,000 in damages in addition to the $750,000 for which the painting by Robert Ryman was insured, saying that after the gallery exhibited it in Miami in 2007 it was returned damaged, a claim the gallery denied.

Under US law, says Poder Magazine, authorities can seize up to 10 times the value of an outstanding settlement until the payment is made.

Edelman, who lived in Lausanne in the 1990s, left Wall Street to turn to art dealing fulltime in 2007. He opened his own gallery, Edelman Arts, in 2008.

Links to other sites: The Art Newspaper, Bloomberg, US court records

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