$1B feud involving Leonardo's 'Salvator Mundi' reveals dark side of the art world
It is the biggest legal fight the art world has ever witnessed: a Russian oligarch, who claims he was ripped off buying multi-million-dollar masterpieces, versus a Swiss art dealer who says it was just business.
Now, after six years of lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions,
the tables appear to be turning once more in a saga so dramatic it's been given
a name worthy of a movie script: "The Bouvier Affair."
Russian fertilizer tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlev has pursued
Swiss art dealer and freeport storage magnate Yves Bouvier around the world for
years in various courts, claiming to have been swindled out of $1 billion on 38
exorbitantly priced artworks sold to him by Bouvier over the course of a
decade.
But in a new twist, Bouvier has told he is preparing his
own billion-dollar damage counter suit against Rybolovlev, after taking legal
action in Singapore in February, alleging a long-running court battle with
Rybolovlev has ruined his businesses and reputation.
The cases so far have kept an army of lawyers and reputation
managers employed on either side, as one allegation against another is levied
by each party, including claims of intimidation and political intrigue.
Fittingly, the tortuous imbroglio also involves some of the
most priceless and controversial pieces of art, including the 2013 purchase of
what is now the world's most expensive and enigmatic painting: the
"Salvator Mundi," thought by some to be the work of Leonardo da Vinci
despite years of debate over its authenticity -- a work on which Bouvier made a
markup of more than 50%.
Long believed by others to be a copy or the work of Leonardo's
studio, the "Salvator Mundi" was purchased in 2005 by a consortium of
speculative art dealers for under $10,000. Eight years later, after the
painting had been restored and declared the work of the Renaissance master,
Bouvier bought it for $80 million after enlisting the help of a poker player to
beat down the price. The dealer swiftly sold it on for $127.5 million to his
then-client, Rybolovlev, via the pair's offshore vehicles, according to an
invoice referred to in court papers, and taking a 1% commission. And while the
oligarch later auctioned off the painting for an astonishing $450 million in
2017, to a secret buyer now widely believed to be Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman, he nonetheless alleges that Bouvier defrauded him -- a claim
Bouvier denies.
Rybolovlev declined to be interviewed for this story, but a
spokesperson for Dmitry Rybolovlev's family entities told CNN: "These
matters are being fought in the courts where we expect to prove what happened
and that Bouvier's fanciful story is false. For now, what is most notable is
what Bouvier does not dispute: as an art adviser, he pretended to help his
clients assemble an art collection at a cost of $2 billion while secretly
reaping half of that price for himself."
Yet Bouvier does dispute he was ever an "art adviser,"
a matter that has at been at the heart of the litigation and allegations by
Rybolovlev of breach of trust.
"I am an art dealer," he told CNN. "The
contracts prepared by Rybolovlev's lawyers and all my invoices explicitly
described me as 'the seller.'
"Rybolovlev has never managed to convince a single
judge or prosecutor otherwise, in any jurisdiction, for the very simple reason
that his allegations do not match the reality of our contractual
relations."
The saga of the legal battle encompasses many of the
problems regulators have identified with the soaring global art market -- art,
in the wrong hands, has become yet another commodity to move money with little
accountability.
The "Salvator Mundi," meanwhile, hasn't been seen
since the record-breaking sale. But it has been back in the headlines after a
French documentary claimed in April that the painting had been at the center of
a diplomatic spat between Paris and Riyadh, amid doubts over its authenticity
and a request by the kingdom that it be shown in the Louvre.
In the documentary, "The Savior for Sale," an
anonymous high-ranking French official claims that Prince bin Salman was
adamant that the "Salvator Mundi" be displayed next to the "Mona
Lisa" in order to solidify its place as an authentic Leonardo -- despite
ongoing questions about whether the work is entirely by the Italian master.
The French government ultimately decided not to exhibit the
painting under the Saudis' conditions, which the anonymous official says in the
film "would be akin to laundering a piece that cost $450 million."
Even with the painting out of the public eye, art historians and experts have
continued to debate whether the "Salvator Mundi" is an autograph
Leonardo or whether he merely contributed to a painting that was predominantly
executed by his workshop. The difference could affect its value by hundreds of
millions of dollars, given that there are fewer than 20 authenticated Leonardo
paintings in the world.
It seems that even those seeking to profit from the painting
had doubts about its authenticity.
Emails shared by Bouvier appear to show communication
between Bouvier and a representative of Rybolovlev in which the dealer advised
his client in 2013 that the work was a thing of beauty but not a good
investment. It was so heavily restored, the dealer wrote, that experts doubted
the work was entirely completed by Leonardo himself, and neither the Vatican
nor any major world museum had expressed interest in acquiring it.
The hands are the best-preserved bits," reads Bouvier's
email, dated March 22, 2013, while "the rest of it has largely been
restored."
In another email, Bouvier writes that any "buyer who
acquires this painting that no one wants at too high a price will be seen as a
'pigeon' and become the laughing stock of the market and will lose
credibility," given the "very low original proportion that appears to
have been painted by the hand of Leonardo himself."
Bouvier nonetheless arranged to borrow the "Salvator
Mundi" (with a $63 million deposit, he said) from Sotheby's. He claims he
then arranged for it to be delivered to the Russian's penthouse in Manhattan in
a "black document holder."
Antoine Vitkine, the filmmaker who spent two years producing
the recent documentary, told he was taken aback to learn that Bouvier, who
began his career as an art world outsider, was among those to cast doubt on the
painting's credentials given that more prominent experts have authenticated the
"Salvator Mundi."
"That's extraordinary," Vitkine said, adding that
he thinks some prominent art historians who have risked their reputation on the
"Salvator Mundi" were more lax than they would normally be when it
comes to weighing in on a rediscovered painting.
Among those to throw their weight behind the attribution to
Leonardo was the UK's National Gallery, which exhibited the "Salvator
Mundi" in 2011 and catapulted it into the global spotlight. The painting's
unveiling was, at the time, widely covered by the press.
"You have to remember, so many people have a stake in
this work," Vitkine said.s
Bouvier has always denied the charges of fraud leveled
against him by Rybolovlev, who has seen his own share of tabloid controversy,
including a headline-grabbing divorce and the purchase of an eye-wateringly
expensive property from Donald Trump years before the former president took
office.
The Russian oligarch, who is president and co-owner of AS
Monaco Football Club, is fighting charges in relation to a bribery scandal of
Monegasque officials in connection with the Bouvier litigation, in a case
dubbed "Monacogate" by the French-language press.
Lawyers for Rybolovlev said in a statement "As far as
these allegations are concerned, Dmitriy Rybolovlev remains presumed innocent.
He is completely confident about the outcome of this case, in which, after more
than three and a half years of investigation, no convincing evidence against
him could be found."
In the last six years, Bouvier has fended off legal action
in Monaco, Singapore and Hong Kong. A $380 million suit, launched by Rybolovlev
against Sotheby's for allegedly helping Bouvier inflate his prices is still
ongoing in New York. That litigation sprang back into the public domain on May
7, when Rybolovlev's legal team amended their complaint for the first time in
two years to include the sale of a Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec painting on behalf
of Rybolovlev by Sotheby's via Bouvier, claiming it was hard to recoup the
price paid on the work because of its inflated value. Rybolovlev also claimed
in the amended complaint he was not paid the $9.5 million the auction house
owed him over the sale. Sotheby's is contesting the claim.
The onslaught of litigation has, according to Bouvier,
turned his life upside down. "I used to be an entrepreneur, someone with
many businesses and a family firm built up over 50 years," he told CNN.
"Since all this started, all I've done is spent my time
defending myself in court and my reputation in the press," said Bouvier,
who admits he made $40 million by flipping the "Salvator Mundi" in
two days.
Text messages presented in the French documentary -- not
independently confirmed by CNN -- appear to show Bouvier claiming to
Rybolovlev's aides that he couldn't secure him a better price than the amount
the Russian eventually paid.
"That's a very good deal for my company. I'm not going
to complain," said Bouvier when asked about the large difference.
"You have to understand what this was like," said
Bouvier. "I was blacklisted by the auction houses, the banks wouldn't
extend credit (to me, and) I had to start selling off assets to keep my staff
and my businesses."
Bouvier claims he has been spied upon and followed by
various individuals he does not know. Via a representative of his own he shared
with CNN an 81-page private investigation he appears to have shared with
prosecutors in Geneva, codenamed "Buldog" which he had commissioned
from a Swiss security firm named 4CTM. Beyond concluding he had been tailed by
a group of men the firm believed to be British as part of a "very big
budget operation," the report was not able to further identify the people
allegedly tailing Bouvier. Asked by CNN about the alleged surveillance,
Rybolovlev's representative had no comment.
CNN reached out to 4CTM security for comment on their report
but is yet to receive a response.
Exploiting the art world's opacity
To author and filmmaker Ben Lewis, whose 2019 book "The
Last Leonardo" details the drama surrounding the "Salvator
Mundi," the public fight between Bouvier and Rybolovlev lifts the veil on
the art market's ugly side.
"The Bouvier Affair is a classic example of what can go
wrong in the secretive, opaque, and -- in inverted commas -- discreet art
market," said Lewis during an interview with CNN in London, who notes that
parts of the art world have developed a rocky reputation for its way of doing
business.
"Opacity, lack of transparency, greed, tax evasion,
money laundering, art historical dishonesty, dissembling, disingenuousness,
corruption. I mean, where does it end?"
But the secrecy, hefty markups, and legal contention
involved in the "Salvator Mundi" scandal are not representative of
the vast majority of art transactions, says art collector and expert Kenny
Schachter.
"The fact that people always say the art world is so
unregulated and has a dark side is a bit of an exaggeration," said
Schachter, in a phone interview with CNN, adding that art isn't any more
corrupt than other industries involving multi-million-dollar deals, such as
real estate, jewelry, and banking. "No matter what it is, when there is a
lot of money, there is going to be bad actions."
But when it comes to secrecy that does exist in certain
facets of the art world, Bouvier is not only a conduit for valuable artworks --
he has built a career on helping the rich keep valuable works hidden from view.
As well as having been a major investor in the Geneva freeport, a huge,
high-security storage facility where collectors and galleries hold artworks in
tax-efficient warehouses, the Swiss dealer has helped establish new freeports
in Luxembourg and Singapore.
Bouvier told CNN that Russia also expressed interest in
having its own tax-exempt freeport.
In 2016, a year into his legal woes, Bouvier said he was
approached by Yury Trutnev, Russia's deputy prime minister and a personal
friend of Rybolovlev, with a proposal to help build one in Vladivostok, at the
behest of President Vladimir Putin. A photograph, shared with CNN by Bouvier,
appears to show Bouvier and Trutnev meeting in Singapore. The Swiss dealer also
shared various emails, which CNN was unable to independently verify, seemingly
showing Russian officials inviting him to join the project.
The Russian freeport ultimately never went ahead. But
Bouvier claims that he asked Russia's deputy prime minister to intervene in his
dispute with Rybolovlev in return for his help on the project.
"I did mention (to Trutnev), 'I have some legal issues
with one of your fellow citizens,'" Bouvier said. "He told me, 'I'll
take care of it.' That was when I understood: The message was 'If you help me
sort this problem out, I'll make yours go away.'"
CNN reached out to the Russian government and Trutnev's
office for comment but is yet to receive a response.
"I might do business with Russia in the future -- why
not? It's a country of great culture but I'd never do business with an oligarch
again," Bouvier said.
Russia's Kremlin-connected elite is already under scrutiny
over its art holdings: A report published by the US Senate's Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations in 2020 claimed companies linked to two other
Russian oligarchs with close ties to the Kremlin had exploited the art world's
opacity to evade sanctions.
The findings prompted Senators to call for greater
transparency in the fine art sector.
"It is shocking that US banking regulations don't
currently apply to multimillion-dollar art transactions, and we cannot let that
continue," Ohio Senator Rob Portman, the committee's chairman, said in a
statement at the time.
Art masterpieces often pack high dollar value into a small,
portable canvas, Lewis says. "Fifty million bucks in a suitcase, right?
And who's to say how much it's really worth?"
The European Union and UK have also bolstered regulations on
art sales with anti-money laundering legislation adopted in 2020. Those regulations
require auctions houses and art dealers to do due diligence on new customers
for any transaction that exceeds about $12,000.
"There's been a steady increase in compliance
regulations," Schachter said. "It's a big misperception for people to
think that the art world is just this cesspool... maybe it was more like that
in the past, but there's definitely been a clamping down."
Schachter also notes that storing art in freeports is
relatively common and usually done for legitimate reasons, such as not having
enough wall space for a vast art collection.
"A real collector is someone who is not really hindered
by the lack of space to hang something or the lack of money to buy something
because collectors just have to have it and they'll always figure out a way --
sometimes illicitly, but mostly not," he said. "I don't think
everyone in the art world are angels, but I don't think that (freeports) are
purpose-built for evasion or money laundering."
Against the backdrop of legal wrangling, there is one
question on the lips of everyone in the art world: Where is the "Salvator
Mundi"?
Bouvier doubts recent reports that it's on Prince bin
Salman's yacht, as was alleged in 2019.
"To put a painting like this on a yacht, with the sea
air and the evaporation would be utterly stupid. I cannot believe the buyer
would put this painting in a setting like that," Bouvier said.
"It is on a wood board, which can warp in no
time," he said, referring to the walnut panel on which the artwork was
painted.
Vitkine speculates that "it might be that we see it one
day in the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Who knows?"
Meanwhile, Lewis thinks it could be in a palace in Saudi
Arabia, ready to be unveiled -- perhaps before the end of this year -- as part
of the kingdom's drive to brand itself as a hub for arts and culture. "The
important thing about the art market is that behind the most beautiful objects
often lie the ugliest of motives," he said. "'Salvator Mundi' means
'Savior of the world.' And in a way, the painting is now not so much Savior of
the world, as the Savior of Saudi Arabia."
Meanwhile, with the legal wrangling between the painting's
former owners resurfacing once more, this valuable masterpiece and others once
in the same collection, continue to test many a reputation.
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