An art collector has accused Christie’s of failing to disclose that the previous owner of a £14.5 million (~$19.7 million) Picasso painting was a convicted cocaine smuggler.
In a lawsuit filed on July 21 in the UK, Brewer Management Corporation alleged that the auction house misrepresented the provenance of the Cubist portrait “Femme dans un rocking-chair (Jacqueline)” (1956). The British Virgin Islands company had purchased the work through its representative, collector and venture capitalist Sasan Ghandehari, at Christie’s London Evening Sale in February 2023. Months later, Ghandehari discovered that the previous owner, José Mestre Fernandez, had been arrested and convicted for drug trafficking nearly a decade earlier, a fact the company claims Christie’s did not disclose.
“The Defendant’s misrepresentations about the ownership and provenance of the painting were positively misleading, and also had the effect of covering up serious concerns regarding the painting, including the potential that it could represent the proceeds of crime,” the lawsuit reads.
Denying the company’s allegations, a Christie’s spokesperson told Hyperallergic in an email that the auction house is “confident that it has complied with all legal and regulatory obligations.”
“This is a straight-forward debt claim and Christie’s will robustly defend this claim and continue to pursue the sums rightfully owed to it,” the spokesperson said.
“Christie’s owes duties of confidentiality to its clients, bidders and buyers but is confident that it has complied with all legal and regulatory obligations in relation to due diligence of the work and our consignor,” the spokesperson continued.
The legal dispute centers on a third-party guarantee agreement stipulating that Brewer Management and Ghandehari would place an “irrevocable bid” on the Picasso painting at auction and purchase the work if no buyer claimed the painting. The company would then resell the work at a higher price to another party.
When the work failed to sell to another bidder, Brewer Management paid Christie’s an initial amount of just over £4.8 million (~$6.5 million) per the agreement. By May, the painting had still not been resold, and Ghandehari began looking into the work’s provenance.
According to the lawsuit, a Christie’s executive had “made representations to the effect” that Mestre Fernandez had died and his son had inherited the works after his death. But after the sale, Ghandehari discovered through an internet search that Mestre Fernandez appeared to be alive and had been convicted and imprisoned in 2014 for trafficking cocaine through Barcelona’s port facilities. This information, the lawsuit claims, rendered the painting “unsaleable or only saleable at a substantial discount.”
Brewer Management is now seeking to rescind the original agreement with Christie’s and repayment for the initial payment. A representative for the company told Hyperallergic in a statement that the case brings up serious concerns “about conflicts of interest and professional standards in high-value art transactions.”
“The claim alleges that Christie’s placed its own commercial interests ahead of its duties to a long-standing client, resulting in serious breaches of trust,” Brewer Management’s representative said.
