New York gallery sued over phony, overvalued art

5 July 2011

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Anatoly Bekkerman

New York's ABA Gallery and its owner, Anatoly Bekkerman, have been accused by a European buyer of selling $6.5 million in fake and overvalued paintings by Russian artists.

A company in Luxembourg filed a federal suit on Friday claiming that Bekkerman sold them four paintings that were forged and 14 more that were "of substantially lesser value than Bekkerman had represented," according to Courthouse News Service.

One work was an oil painting by Ivan Aivazovsky called "Seascape with Peter the Great," which the Luxembourg company bought for $4 million, but says it was worth only $800,000.

Although they are not named in the complaint, two members of Sotheby's Russian art department are also accused of helping Bekkerman carry out the fraud. They are Regina Abramovich, a consultant to the Private Client Group and Sonya Bekkerman, Bekkerman's daughter, a senior vice president of Russian paintings at Sotheby's, according to Courthouse News Service.

Read more at Business Insider

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