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Mick Taylor Demands Independent Inspection of Disputed 1959 Les Paul at the Met

Taylor’s team is pushing for a third-party expert to confirm whether the sunburst Les Paul was the guitar stolen during the Stones’ 1971 sessions

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ARCHIVO - Mick Jagger, en el centro, Ronnie Wood, a la izquierda, y Mick Taylor, de la banda de rock británica The Rolling Stones, actúan en el escenario principal de la Pirámide en Glastonbury, Inglaterra, el 29 de junio de 2013. (Joel Ryan/Invision/AP, archivo)

Overview

  • In early August Taylor formally contested the instrument’s provenance, saying the Met’s Les Paul matches the one taken from Villa Nellcôte in 1971.
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art maintains its records trace the guitar from Keith Richards to manager Adrian Miller, a failed Christie’s auction in 2004, purchase by Dirk Ziff in 2016 and loan to the museum in 2019.
  • Museum spokesperson Ann Ballis says there is no documentation linking the Les Paul to Taylor and that the Met has not been contacted by his representatives.
  • Taylor’s manager Marlies Damming has called for an independent guitar specialist to examine the instrument and settle the ownership dispute.
  • The disagreement underscores wider challenges in verifying provenance for high-value musical artifacts and raises questions about museum collection practices.