London Dealer Must Return Souzas Bought "in Good Faith"

LONDON—Aziz Kurtha, a lawyer and art dealer based in London and Dubai, has regained ownership of two works by the late Indian artist Francis Newton Souza, from another dealer, London-based Michael Marks, reports the Art Newspaper.

Marks bought Head of a Portuguese Navigator (1961) and Chalice with Host (1953) from a business associate in 2006 after screening them with the Art Loss Register's stolen art database, which did not alert him to any potential problems. He says he bought them in good faith.

ALR chairman Julian Radcliffe has admitted in court, however, that Marks was given false information about the works, which in fact had been registered as missing. According to the Art Newspaper, Radcliffe said that it is "sometimes necessary to mislead people who make enquiries about the database in order to establish identity and bank details." Radcliffe said this procedure would only be used on an unfamiliar dealer, as it was on Marks. Kurtha then took Marks to court to recover the works.

Kurtha registered the works as missing in 2005. They were stolen along with several other works from his collection of more than 200 Souza works from either his London home or a nearby storage facility in the 1990s.

Marks, who will be responsible for the costs of the transaction, has not announced intentions to appeal the ruling. Kurtha, an expert on Souza who has also written books about him, says the works are worth £350,000 ($700,000).