Paint, by Numbers

摘要

AN INCREASINGLY abstract legal picture is being drawn over $2 billion worth of artwork bought by Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev from Swiss dealer Ives Bouvier, including a Leonardo da Vinci portrait of Christ. Rybolovlev paid Bouvier $127.5 million for the painting; it later emerged that the dealer had paid just $80 million for it not long before. Bouvier's attorney has called the battle, now entering its third year, a "scorched-earth litigation campaign"; opposing counsel says Bouvier "stands accused of the largest art fraud in history."