Another Wildenstein story from 2015

In New York, a legal battle was engaged by the Wildensteins who reproached Qatar for not having honored its promise to buy at the price initially required their building in New York which was to house a new consulate there. Even before finalizing the purchase of this building located at 19th East 64th Street, diplomats from Qatar had organized a huge reception there in December 2013 after removing paintings by Fragonard and Boucher to replace them with photographs of hawks and an ice sculpture representing the Museum of Islamic Arts in Doha by architect IM Pei. However, when the Wildensteins had emptied the five-story building of its treasures a few weeks later, the Qatari Consulate General attempted to renegotiate the purchase. As a result, the latter brought an action against the Emirate in a New York court in order to win the case. For its part, Qatar had denounced the sales contract based on allegations that Guy Wildenstein was involved in a money laundering case, while the latter considered that it was a pretext for cancel it after realizing that the asking price for the building was exaggerated. Based on the Patriot Act 2001 relating to terrorism or money laundering, the contract specified that the seller or its partners should have committed no violation of this decree. In his complaint, Guy Wildenstein admitted to being the subject since 2011 of an investigation in France on suspicions of tax fraud and money laundering in connection with the inheritance of Daniel, his father who died in Paris in 2001, while noting that the Qatari consulate was necessarily aware of this case although no charge of money laundering had yet been brought in France against him or any other member of his family. Guy Wildenstein, therefore, claimed damages of at least $ 9 million for the failure to complete the sale of his building, while Qatar for its part demanded the annulment of the procedure on the pretext that its consul-general did not have the authority to sign this contract. Nevertheless, the consul-general had paid a deposit of $ 9 million to finalize this sale while in June 2014 Guy Wildenstein had entirely emptied the building of his archives and his paintings to transfer them to offices. located on 5th Avenue near the Museum of Modern Art. . Seeking to prove that the government of Qatar had indeed supervised the purchase of this building, the plaintiff's lawyer argued that the building had been visited in September 2013 by Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah shortly after the payment of the deposit by its consul-general and that two weeks before the finalization of the contract scheduled for January 2014, the Emirate had requested and received the approval of the US State Department regarding this acquisition. Nathan, Guy's great-grandfather had opened his gallery in 1875 in Paris, 57 years before his son Georges bought this New York building built on the model of the family's mansion on the rue de la Boétie and endowed with high rooms of more than nine meters, a monumental staircase as well as a living room decorated with woodwork coming from the Parisian residence of the Duke of Talleyrand. . In announcing the sale of the New York building, David Wildsenstein, Guy's son, clarified that the gallery no longer needed to be housed in such a large location due to the new market situation in art became dominated by big auction houses or prestigious fairs adding that the family was keen to focus on contemporary art and the field of luxury real estate.
seen in Le Journal d'un fou d'art/ my dear late friend Adrian Darmon