A judge in New York has opened a crevice in the traditional secrecy of the art market with a ruling that directed Sotheby’s to reveal who consigned and who bought a painting by Tiepolo, the Italian old master, that was sold at auction in 2019 for $100,000. The ruling came
Tag: Sothebys
5 Takeaways From the Sotheby’s Art Fraud Trial
Over the course of three weeks, the art world watched as a Russian oligarch pursued a lawsuit in an American court in which he accused Sotheby’s of abetting a fraud. The oligarch, Dmitry Rybolovlev, testified in federal court in New York that a Swiss art dealer had cheated him by
Jury Begins Deliberating in Sotheby’s Art Fraud Case
After nearly three weeks of testimony, a jury in New York started its deliberations on Tuesday in the case of a Russian oligarch who has accused Sotheby’s of conspiring with a Swiss art dealer to defraud him out of tens of millions of dollars in high-end art sales. Lawyers for
At Art Fraud Trial, Sotheby’s Is Pressed on Role in Sales to Russian Oligarch
The painting Sotheby’s was trying to sell was a newly discovered work by one of the world’s greatest artists, Leonardo da Vinci. It was known as the “Salvator Mundi” and was a depiction of Christ. But it had a code name: Jack. Samuel Valette, a Sotheby’s specialist, testified in a
Sotheby’s to Oligarch at Art Fraud Trial: The Buck Stopped With You
Dmitry Rybolovlev survived the turmoil of the collapse of the Soviet Union, founded a bank in Russia in the 1990s and built a fortune of roughly $7 billion from the sale of a potash fertilizer company. He managed to get that wealth out of Russia, acquired a share in a
At Trial, Sotheby’s Says Russian Oligarch Was Sloppy in Buying Art
As the opening witness in a civil art fraud trial this week, Mikhail Sazonov testified that his employer, a Russian oligarch, had been tricked to overspend by a Swiss art dealer and that those markups had been boosted by the evaluations of artworks supplied by a Sotheby’s executive. But during
Russian Billionaire’s Aide Testifies That Sotheby’s Helped Defraud Him
On Tuesday, the court was shown contracts between Rybolovlev’s company and companies owned by Bouvier for four initial art purchases. Bouvier has put forward the sales contracts as proof that he was openly operating as a dealer who owned the art himself. But Sazanov testified that he had not recognized
Russian Oligarch Takes Sotheby’s to Court as Art World Watches
In 2013, when Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian oligarch, was in the midst of buying $2 billion worth of art, one of the many works he purchased was “Tête,” a sculpture by Modigliani, for $83 million. That, he says, was the price Yves Bouvier, a man helping to handle the transaction,
Sotheby’s Provenance Disputed in Claim by Heirs for Art Lost in Nazi Era
In 2019, Sotheby’s sold a work by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, the master painter, that was left behind in Austria when a Jewish gallery owner fled the Nazis in 1938. Sotheby’s says that at the time of the sale it didn’t know that history, and so the auction catalog only mentioned
Fair Warning: Lots of Passes, But Sotheby’s Modern Sales Still Bring In $427 Million
Above the fireplace in the Los Angeles living room where the music executive Mo Ostin entertained celebrity clients like Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell were two unusual paintings by René Magritte. The Belgian surrealist was still an acquired taste when Ostin started collecting him in the 1990s, long