Missing Art Collection

I have been traveling for a few days and dont have much time to post.  The past few posts I had loaded before I left.

Here is a Bloomberg article about a Greek heiress who believes a collection of important works, which, she claims should have been part of her inheritance was illegally sold.  It is an interesting story, and the full collection of art was said to be worth $1 billion.  Follow the link below to read the full article.

Bloomberg reports

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 who spent the winter months in the Alpine resort of Gstaad with his wife Elise. The Greek couple amassed a billion-dollar collection that they displayed in their chalet.

Basil Goulandris died in 1994; 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.

“I am determined to find the paintings which were in the Gstaad home before my aunt’s death,” Zaimis said by phone from Greece. “I believe with all my heart that the paintings were part of my inheritance.”

Her quest has uncovered a paper trail leading from the Aegean island of Andros to Swiss depots; from a Panama trading company to a Liechtenstein foundation, according to two people familiar with the lawsuit who declined to be identified by name.

The case now winding through a Lausanne court 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.”

Documents Claim
Swiss prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into the Elise Goulandris Foundation -- Elise’s main heir -- and the executor of her will, the art historian and curator Kyriakos Koutsomallis, on suspicion of falsifying titles of ownership, passing on false documents and duplicity in executing the will, the people said. They declined to be identified by name because of privacy restrictions in Swiss lawsuits.

Source: Bloomberg