Russian’s Da Vinci Windfall Undercut U.S. Probe of Art Dealer
- U.S. said to close Bouvier inquiry after $450 million sale
- ‘Salvator Mundi’ was centerpiece of fraud allegations
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Federal investigators in New York spent more than a year building a case against a Swiss art dealer over alleged improper mark-ups in the sale of dozens of masterworks to a Russian oligarch. One sale he arranged, a $128 million transaction for Leonardo da Vinci’s famed portrait of Jesus Christ, known as the “Salvator Mundi,” secretly netted the dealer more than $40 million.
The investigators interviewed witnesses, issued grand jury subpoenas for records of the transactions and persuaded a key senior executive at Sotheby’s Inc. -- which helped facilitate a dozen of the deals, including for the Da Vinci -- to be a witness in the case.