An art dealer has been ordered to pay £111,000 over a missing abstract painting compared to a giant “burnt digestive biscuit” by a judge in a London court.
The court heard that the piece by the Mexican artist Bosco Sodi – a round painting with a cracked surface built up using natural pigment, sawdust, wood pulp, natural fibres, water and glue – went missing after being loaned to the London art dealer Esperanza Koren in 2012.
Koren was subsequently sued for €100,000 (£85,700) by the owners of Barcelona-based gallery Principal Art, which owns the two-and-a-half-metre-wide painting.
The gallery had argued that Koren had promised to buy the painting, called Untitled in red 2011, for €100,000 in 2013 but failed to pay and later said she did not know where the artwork was.
At Central London county court, the judge, Alan Saggerson, said of the painting: “It would seem to have the appearance of a burnt digestive biscuit. This is of value to some in some quarters of the world.”
The court heard that Koren had worked for Principal Art gallery as an agent licensed to exhibit and sell artworks and had been loaned a “large set” of paintings to exhibit in 2012.
Among them was Untitled in red 2011. However, the art dealer’s stint representing the gallery was “unsuccessful” and she was asked to return the unsold works, the judge said.
But the Bosco Sodi piece was not among the set of paintings that Koren returned.
A representative of the gallery sent her WhatsApp messages asking for its return, saying he had secured a buyer in Miami who would pay €100,000 for it.
The court heard that Koren failed to return the piece of modern art and instead offered to buy the artwork for the same sum, according to messages she sent on WhatsApp, which the gallery argued represented a legally binding contract.
Saggerson said the artwork remains missing and lawyers for the gallery told him that no money has been received a decade on from the WhatsApp messages.
The court heard that a gallery employee, identified only as Carlos, had messaged Koren, saying: “The large red Bosco is missing. Do you know where it is?”
The employee’s message added: “I arrive [on] Tuesday to Miami. I have a client who pays me €100,000. I don’t want to miss the opportunity. I need the red painting which I have sold. I have a client who pays €100,000. He thinks it is a fantastic painting.”
The judge said: “Ms Koren had responded: ‘OK I pay you this price. Call me.’”
Asked where the painting was, Koren said: “At the moment, I don’t know where [it] is.”
Koren asked for an adjournment but was refused.
Delivering a verdict, the judge said: “I do find it extraordinary that the defendant [has] no recollection whatsoever of the whereabouts of the painting, where it ended up and with whom.
“The inevitable inference is that she used it as security for other debts and has lost track of its whereabouts. Her submissions have such a hollow ring.”
The judge awarded £86,500 in damages, plus £6,500 interest and £18,000 costs, a total of £111,000.
