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Pursuits

Dispute Over $127.5 Million Leonardo Painting Draws in Sotheby’s

  • The firm helped sell ‘Salvator Mundi’ for $80 million
  • Sotheby’s seeks preemptive order against any liability
Dmitri Rybolovlev.

Dmitri Rybolovlev.

Photographer: Agence Nice Presse/Icon Sport via Getty Images

Sotheby’s joined the long-running dispute over a Leonardo da Vinci painting that has pitted Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev against a Swiss businessman who operates the biggest art storage facilities around the world.

The auction house fired a preemptive shot with a request to a federal judge for an order clearing it of any wrongdoing in the private sale of “Christ as Salvator Mundi” to Yves Bouvier, president of Natural Le Coultre, that operates Geneva Freeport.