THE National Gallery of Ireland is to receive more than $600,000 (£370,000) following a settlement in a London court with the US media giant CBS over royalty payments on George Bernard Shaw's My Fair Lady.
Shaw, on whose play Pygmalion the hit musical was based, left one third of his estate to respectively the National Gallery in Dublin, the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. The bequest acquired considerable value after the staging on Broadway in 1956 of My Fair Lady, with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, and the subsequent Hollywood film.
The Shaw Trust, administrator of the Irish playwright's estate, has sued a number of parties in Britain and the US for what it considers inadequate royalties. It won the first of these cases, against CBS, in the High Court in London yesterday. CBS is to pay $2 million to the three beneficiaries.
A spokesman for the National Gallery said: "We are satisfied with the outcome and will be making no further comment." However, art sources say that the court decision opens the way for the Shaw Trust to pursue other actions successfully. "What was happening was the people producing Shaw were not just getting him on the cheap, but sometimes were not paying at all", one source commented.
It is believed that royalties from My Fair Lady alone have been worth £3 million to the National, Gallery. It has used this money to buy works by Goya, Fragonard, Renoir, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Camille Pissarro and Jack Yeats.