A Greek heiress is fighting a legal battle in Switzerland to find out what has become of a collection of Picasso, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Cezanne and Degas art that she says should be part of her inheritance.
Aspasia Zaimis’s uncle, Basil Goulandris, was a billionaire shipping magnate. He died in 1994 while his wife Elise in 2000. Zaimis, a legatee in Elise Goulandris’s will, contends that one- sixth of the collection should be hers after her aunt’s death.
Now, aided by an art dealer,she is trying to unravel the mystery of the missing works which art historian Nicholas Fox Weber says were the “the very quintessence” of each artist, according to the news agency Bloomberg.
The case centers around 83 works, a third of the collection, that were supposedly sold for $31m. Others value that third at more than $750 million, giving the entire collection the potential value of more than $2bn:
Among the artworks in the list of 83 attached to the disputed sales contract are 11 by Picasso, three by Braque, five Cezanne paintings, three by Marc Chagall, two by Degas, two Gauguins, two Max Ernsts, two Manets, two Miros, two Monets, three Renoirs, two Jackson Pollock oils, a Matisse, a Klee and a Kandinsky, two people familiar with the document said.
An evaluation of a third of the works by Armand Bartos, Jr. Fine Art Inc., put their worth at $781.4 million. That evaluation includes a Van Gogh painting of olive pickers which Bartos said could alone be worth $120 million, and a Cezanne self-portrait that he valued at $60 million.
“I am determined to find the paintings which were in the Gstaad home before my aunt’s death,” Zaimis told Bloomberg. “I believe with all my heart that the paintings were part of my inheritance.” The case now in a Lausanne court which is examining whether a sale contract dated 1985 for 83 masterpieces — at a price far below their value — is genuine, the people said.
“I do not believe that Basil sold his collection,” Zaimis said. “They were so proud of it. I cannot imagine he would have sold it for this price.”
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