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Case file s1207 · Heirlooms and treasure · 1990
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1990
CodexLeicester: Ghezzi-Coke-Hammer-Gates Kodeks
CodexLeicester. Leonardo da Vinci. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
1990 (Armand Hammer)
Place
England; Los Angeles, California, USA
Field
manuscript · Royalty and nobility on the timeline
Legal tradition
English inheritance tax; California community property law · Common law
Historical event
Founding of the Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 1990
Heirlooms and treasureSeized by the statePostwarNorth AmericaEuropeUnited States

Death duties forced an earl's family to sell Leonardo's notebook in 1980, and a widow's niece's lawsuit forced its next owner's museum to sell it again

Leonardo da Vinci filled a notebook with studies of water and the moon in the years after 1508. Thomas Coke, later the first Earl of Leicester, bought it in 1717 and kept it at the family estate. It was known as the Codex Leicester for over 250 years. In 1980 the family sold it to meet inheritance taxes on the estate and art collection. On 12 December 1980 the oil executive Armand Hammer bought it at Christie's in London for $5,126,000. He renamed it the Codex Hammer. Hammer died in 1990 and left it to his museum in Los Angeles. Joan Weiss, niece and sole heir of his late wife Frances, sued. She claimed Frances had been entitled under California community property law to a share of the art Hammer bought, and sought a percentage of the collection's value. In 1994 the museum put the codex up for sale as insurance against the lawsuit, with the proceeds to go to a settlement or to acquisitions. On 11 November 1994 it sold at Christie's New York for $30.8 million to an anonymous bidder, soon identified as Bill Gates. Gates restored the name Codex Leicester. He owns it and lends it to museums for display.

What the law took from it

Two estates in a row lost the same heirloom, one to tax and one to a spouse's heir.

Sources
  1. history.comPress
  2. The Seattle TimesPress
  3. The Art NewspaperPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Death duties forced an earl's family to sell Leonardo's notebook in 1980, and a widow's niece's lawsuit forced its next owner's museum to sell it again,” story s1207, https://www.celebrity.estate/codex-leicester-1990, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Heirlooms and treasureSeized by the statePostwarNorth AmericaEuropeCommon lawUnited States