Picasso Bust at Center of Custody Battle Between Gagosian and Qatar Royal Family
The Qatari royal family and a major US art dealer are in dispute over who bought the piece from the artist’s daughter.
A Picasso sculpture valued at over $100 million is at the centre of a legal battle between the Qatari royal family and a major art dealer.
Bust of a Woman, a 1931 rendering of the artist’s muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, is currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Both the Qatari royal family and dealer Larry Gagosian claim they bought it from Picasso’s 80-year-old daughter Maya Widmaier-Picasso, the New York Times reported.
The seller, in both cases, was Picasso’s daughter Maya Widmaier-Picasso, 80. She declined to comment on why she appears to have sold the artwork twice.
In a legal action filed on Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan against the Qatari family’s agent, Mr. Gagosian claims that he bought the 1931 sculpture in May 2015 for about $106 million from Ms. Widmaier-Picasso, and then sold it to an undisclosed New York collector who expects to receive it after MoMA’s show closes on Feb. 7.
But the Qatari family’s agent, Pelham Holdings,
run by Guy Bennett, maintains in its own court documents that it secured an agreement with Ms. Widmaier-Picasso to buy the work in November 2014 for 38 million euros, or about $42 million.
The Gagosian Gallery went to court this week in New York to file a legal action against Pelham Holdings, an agent for the Qatari royal family.
The gallery claimed it bought the sculpture for $105.8 million in May last year.
But Pelham said it had previously reached an agreement in November 2014 to purchase the piece for $42 million, and had already handed over $6.5 million.
Pelham was acting on behalf of Sheikh Jassim bin Abdulaziz al-Thani. His wife, Sheikha al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, chairs the Qatar Museums Authority and is one of the biggest art buyers in the world.
The gallery questioned why Picasso’s daughter would given “supposed consent to such an unreasonably low price” as $42 million.
Matthew Dontzin, a lawyer for the gallery, said: “Buying at this price would have given Pelham an instant $60 million-plus windfall at Maya’s expense. Under plain English, Pelham never took title of the work.”
He said the artist’s daughter had given back the $6.5 million and declared the sale to Qatar null and void before selling to Gagosian.
The Qatari royal family’s agent has accused the gallery of “an attempt to thwart our rights”. Larry Gagosian, owner of the gallery, said the dispute was with Pelham, rather than the Qatari royal family itself.
He said: “We have the highest respect for Sheikh al-Thani, a long time friend of the gallery, and regret that he has been unfairly drawn into this matter.”
