Greek Heiress Sues as Swiss Chalet's Picassos, Monets Vanish

By Catherine Hickley on February 17, 2013

BloombergBusinessweek

A Greek heiress is fighting a legal battle in Switzerland to find out what has become of a collection of Picasso, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Cezanne and Degas art that she says should be part of her inheritance.

Aspasia Zaimis’s uncle, Basil Goulandris, was a billionaire shipping magnate who spent the winter months in the Alpine resort of Gstaad with his wife Elise. The Greek couple amassed a billion-dollar collection that they displayed in their chalet.

Basil Goulandris died in 1994; his wife Elise in 2000. Zaimis, a legatee in Elise Goulandris’s will, contends that one- sixth of the collection should be hers after her aunt’s death.

“I am determined to find the paintings which were in the Gstaad home before my aunt’s death,” Zaimis said by phone from Greece. “I believe with all my heart that the paintings were part of my inheritance.”

Her quest has uncovered a paper trail leading from the Aegean island of Andros to Swiss depots; from a Panama trading company to a Liechtenstein foundation, according to two people familiar with the lawsuit who declined to be identified by name.

The case now winding through a Lausanne court is examining whether a sale contract dated 1985 for 83 masterpieces -- at a price far below their value -- is genuine, the people said.

“I do not believe that Basil sold his collection,” Zaimis said. “They were so proud of it. I cannot imagine he would have sold it for this price.”

Documents Claim

Swiss prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into the Elise Goulandris Foundation -- Elise’s main heir -- and the executor of her will, the art historian and curator Kyriakos Koutsomallis, on suspicion of falsifying titles of ownership, passing on false documents and duplicity in executing the will, the people said. They declined to be identified by name because of privacy restrictions in Swiss lawsuits.

“The proceedings in Switzerland are still in their initial stages,” Zaimis’s lawyer, Ron Soffer of Soffer Avocats in Paris, said in a telephone interview.

When Elise Goulandris left Gstaad for the summer, the paintings were packed up and stored in a depot, according to the two people familiar with the case. Zaimis said she hasn’t seen them since Elise’s death.

A beauty who had counted the former French President Valery Giscard D’Estaing among her friends, Elise died while summering on the Aegean in her yacht. She had written her will in Greek and in code, according to the two people.

Art Museum

The Elise Goulandris Foundation, the chief beneficiary of her will, plans to finance the construction of a contemporary art museum in Athens, according to Koutsomallis’s lawyer, Jean- Christophe Diserens of Etude Villa Olivier in Lausanne. Goulandris also named six legatees including Zaimis, Diserens wrote in a response to e-mailed questions.

Diserens denied any wrongdoing by his client.

“The manner in which Mr. Koutsomallis fulfilled his mission as executor of the will has been approved by the heirs and Mrs. Zaimis’s co-legatees,” Diserens wrote.

The critical sentence in Elise’s will is that all her personal property that is not antique and fit for a museum should go to her nieces and nephews, said the two people, who have seen the will. Zaimis says the paintings aren’t antiques and should be part of her inheritance.

Panama Connection

After she filed suit, Diserens produced a contract dated 1985 showing that Basil Goulandris sold 83 masterpieces to a Panamanian company called Wilton Trading SA for $31.7 million, the people said. The company belonged to Goulandris’s sister-in- law Maria Goulandris, according to testimony given by her son Peter John Goulandris, the two people familiar with the court case said. Maria Goulandris died in 2005.

Yet a report commissioned by the Lausanne prosecutor found that the contract was printed on a type of paper that didn’t exist before 1988, according to the two people, who have seen the report. Zaimis also said she doubts that Basil Goulandris, who was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, would have been capable of signing the contract after 1988.

“He couldn’t lift plates and glasses,” she said.

The Lausanne prosecutor handling the case, Nicolas Cruchet, declined to be interviewed for this article. Diserens said he wouldn’t comment on the disputed contract, as he didn’t wish “to put into the public arena an inheritance conflict which should only be of interest to the judges.”