Simon de Pury is currently embroiled in a lawsuit seeking a $10 million commission to secure the sale of Paul Gauguin’s Nafea faa ipoipo (When will you marry?) to the Qatari Royal Family, the Telegraph reports. The sale was first listed as being made for $300 million, which would have made it the most expensive art sale in history, but recent court filings list the work at $210 million. The lawsuit alleges that de Pury convinced owner Rudolf Staechelin to sell the work, but never received a commission from Qatari representative Guy Bennett, who de Pury claims he had a spoken agreement with on the commission price. “For the avoidance of doubt, there is nothing surprising in these matters being resolved without the use of a written agreement,” says Jonathan Cohen QC, counsel for Mr de Pury. “It would be unusual to find some types of contract made orally, but that is not true of the art market, which continues to operate in a gentlemanly manner, based on mutual trust.”
Read more at The Telegraph
