How has the judge assessed fair market value of a property at issue?

The judge had then to assess the fair market value of the property at issue in light of its distinctiveness and specific characteristics. "Fair market value" means that obtained in the ordinary market, namely a market not distorted by special economic factors, in which sellers ready but not too anxious to sell deal with purchasers ready and able to purchase: Attorney General of Alberta v. Royal Trust Co., 1945 CanLII 22 (SCC), [1945] S.C.R. 267, at 288. To do this, he relied in part on the testimony of expert witnesses and in part on the fact that the property itself could not even fetch at auction a reserve price well below the appraised value submitted by the respondents, in part on prices currently paid at auction for works which had no other market than sale at auction, in part on prices currently paid for works by the same artist that were comparable both in terms of size and of subject-matter and period covered, and in part on the sale or buy-back price of property immediately resold at auction by the donee. The judge took into account the relevant market, in which the forces of supply and demand operated, and in which the work could be sold, or in fact had been resold, shortly thereafter: his assessment is not open to criticism.