DETROIT — The Detroit Institute of Arts cannot be forced to relinquish control of a multimillion-dollar painting by Vincent van Gogh at the center of a federal lawsuit because the artwork is protected by a federal law granting immunity to foreign artwork on display in the United States, the museum's lawyers said Monday.
The painting, "Liseuse De Romans," was granted immunity last summer by the U.S. State Department under a nearly 60-year-old law that governs art and other foreign items of cultural significance imported to the U.S., the lawyers wrote.
The argument is the latest development in the case of the Van Gogh painting, which a Brazilian art collector claims went missing from his collection for six years until being found recently hanging on a wall in the Detroit museum as part of the ongoing "Van Gogh in America" exhibition.
