Axa Art Insurance Corp. is seeking to recover more than $1.5 million from auction house Christie's for allegedly failing to properly store fine art of an insured during Superstorm Sandy.
The subrogation lawsuit filed by Axa Art in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan says the insurer provided coverage to the Piatigorsky Trust. The trust held the art collection of Jacqueline Piatigorsky, a well-known tennis and chess champion as well as an arts patron and sculptor (a bust of her husband, with cello, at left).
Though the suit does not identify the works in the collection, Piatigorsky's husband, renowned cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, was an art collector as well. Past exhibits of his collection included works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee and Edgar Degas.
Axa Art claims Christies, which is also in the business of storing art, warehoused the Piatigorsky collection on a ground-floor staging area in a facility in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn—in a high-risk flood zone—about two weeks before Superstorm Sandy struck the New York metro area on Oct. 29, 2012.
Mrs. Piatigorsky died several months prior, at the age of 100.
Axa Art says Christie's "took no extra precautions, had inadequate staff on site, and failed to raise art to a safe level."
The insurer says Christie's first sent an email out after Sandy to inform Axa the art was safe from damage but two days alter Christie's Vice Chairman Stephen Lash contacted the Trust to say the collection had suffered some water damage.
"But there were, in fact, significant issues," Axa alleges. "Christie's took inadequate measures to mitigate further damage, leaving the collection exposed to water, high humidity, significant temperature fluctuations and particulate matter."
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