Kramer Levin Advises Terra Foundation in Connection with the Sale of 70 Hectares of Land Around Giverny to the French Académie Des Beaux-Arts

With hopes to preserve the landscape once known, loved, walked through and often painted by Claude Monet, the French Académie des Beaux-Arts has just purchased 70 hectares of land from the Terra Foundation for American Art (Terra Foundation), located in the towns of Giverny, Port-Villez and Vernon. The final sale agreement was signed on Feb. 29, 2016.

The Terra Foundation had inherited the Museum of American Art in Giverny in 1996 after the death of its business man and art collector Daniel J. Terra. The inheritance also included real estate that he had bought in and around Giverny, including a 13 hectare meadow next to the Water Garden of the Fondation Claude-Monet. Ten years later, the Terra Foundation sold the American Art Museum to the newly-created Musée des Impressionnismes – Giverny, a French public entity for cultural cooperation (Établissement public de coopération culturelle, or EPCC).

The French Académie des Beaux-Arts, owner of the Fondation Claude-Monet, which manages the house and gardens of the Impressionist painter, is the legatee of Michel Monet, second son of the painter, deceased in 1966.

The Kramer Levin team advising Terra Foundation include Corporate partner Dana Anagnostou and Tax associate Dorothée Chambon.