The 'Salvator Mundi' — the world's most expensive painting — is also the subject of a $1 billion battle between a Russian oligarch and a Swiss art dealer, which is set to heat up again.
It is the biggest legal fight the art world has ever witnessed: a Russian oligarch, who claims he was ripped off buying multi-million-dollar masterpieces, versus a Swiss art dealer who says it was just business.
Fittingly, the tortuous imbroglio also involves some of the most priceless and controversial pieces of art, including the 2013 purchase of what is now the world'sthought by some to be the work of Leonardo da Vinci despite years of debate over its authenticity -- a work on which Bouvier made a markup of more than 50%.Dennis Van Tine/Sipa USA/AP
"I am an art dealer," he told CNN."The contracts prepared by Rybolovlev's lawyers and all my invoices explicitly described me as 'the seller.' The French government ultimately decided not to exhibit the painting under the Saudis' conditions, which the anonymous official says in the film"would be akin to laundering a piece that cost $450 million." Even with the painting out of the public eye, art historians and experts have continued to debate whether the"Salvator Mundi" is an autograph Leonardo or whether he merely contributed to a painting that was predominantly executed by his workshop.
Antoine Vitkine, the filmmaker who spent two years producing the recent documentary, told CNN he was taken aback to learn that Bouvier, who began his career as an art world outsider, was among those to cast doubt on the painting's credentials given that more prominent experts have authenticated the"Salvator Mundi."
The onslaught of litigation has, according to Bouvier, turned his life upside down."I used to be an entrepreneur, someone with many businesses and a family firm built up over 50 years," he told CNN. "You have to understand what this was like," said Bouvier."I was blacklisted by the auction houses, the banks wouldn't extend credit I had to start selling off assets to keep my staff and my businesses."Bouvier claims he has been spied upon and followed by various individuals he does not know.
But the secrecy, hefty markups, and legal contention involved in the"Salvator Mundi" scandal are not representative of the vast majority of art transactions, says art collector and expert Kenny Schachter. The Russian freeport ultimately never went ahead. But Bouvier claims that he asked Russia's deputy prime minister to intervene in his dispute with Rybolovlev in return for his help on the project.
Russia's Kremlin-connected elite is already under scrutiny over its art holdings: A report published by the US Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 2020 claimed companies linked to two other Russian oligarchs with close ties to the Kremlin had exploited the art world's opacity to evade sanctions.
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