Just a day after an art expert testified that art given to New Brunswick's Beaverbrook Art Gallery appeared to be a gift, another expert has downplayed the significance of the 1959 catalogue used as evidence.

"I would never take a catalogue of this nature as proof of ownership," said Freda Metassa, a museum consultant from London, England, speaking on behalf of the Beaverbrook U.K. Foundation, which is claiming the paintings.

She made the statement during testimony Wednesday, during the last day of hearings into the high-profile art dispute.

On Tuesday, art expert Joyce Zemans used entries in the catalogue to back her theory that art assembled by the late Lord Beaverbrook was a gift and not a loan.

"I think [Beaverbrook] did believe that he was doing it for the people of New Brunswick," Zemans, a professor at Toronto's York University, told an arbitration tribunal trying to determine who owns the collection.

The gallery in Fredericton was established by newspaper magnate Max Aitken, the original Lord Beaverbrook, in 1959. Gallery supporters say he donated the 133 artworks worth $100 million as a gift to the city and country.

Entries should have had 'L' for loan: testimony

But the British charitable fund, which administers his trust fund, says the paintings were a loan, not a gift, and should be returned.

Zemans said the items from the 1959 catalogue would have had an 'L' next to their entries if they were on loan, but they did not.

"No one would ever include a work on loan without identifying it as such," she said.

"I do not believe for a single moment that ... [acting curator Russell Harper] would've thought for a moment that this work was not owned by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery."

On Wednesday, Metassa said records varied from gallery to gallery at the time and were "amazingly casual" when it came to loans.

"There were no contracts for loans in the '50s," she said.

Final arguments to be held later this month

David Young, a lawyer for the gallery, noted the Beaverbrook in fact kept records showing loans to and from other galleries.

No similar documents cover the loan of art between the foundation and the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, he said on Wednesday.

Zemens was cross-examined by Kent Thomson, lawyer for the British Beaverbrook Foundation, about the whether the catalogue ever refers to the art as part of the New Brunswick museum's "permanent collection."

"No, it does not," she responded.

Thomson also mentioned a letter written by Beaverbrook expressing concerns over Harper's abilities.

Zemans responded, saying "it wasn't a bunch of inexperienced people who didn't know what they were doing" at the gallery, noting that Harper was a chief cataloguer at the Royal Ontario Museum in 1964.

Among the paintings in dispute are J.M.W. Turner's Fountain of Indolence, estimated to be worth as much as $25 million, and Hotel Bedroom by Lucien Freud, which could be worth as much as $8 million.

Final arguments will be held in Fredericton later in November.

This is one of two disputes over Beaverbrook items at the gallery. In the other case, the Canadian Beaverbrook Foundation is suing the gallery over ownership of 78 other paintings it says were only on loan. That case is expected to be heard in New Brunswick next year.

With files from the Canadian Press