Art collector wins £350,000 from firm that dump his Kapoor sculpture

[Merlion]

Interesting case. The firm was a fine art specialist storage firm.

Art collector wins £350,000 from firm that threw his Kapoor sculpture in skip (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article1525705.ece)

March 16, 2007

An art collector today won £350,000 damages from a specialist storage firm that accidentally threw a sculpture by Anish Kapoor, the Turner Prize-winning artist, in the bin.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00142/sculpture185_142675o.jpg

Ofir Scheps sued the storage company for damages after the abstract sculpture went missing and he was offered just £587 by way of compensation.

He had purchased Hole and Vessel ll from a private collector for £35,000 while it was stored at Christie's awaiting auction in 2004.

He asked Fine Art Logistics, a specialist removal and storage company based in southwest London, to collect it and store it for him. Three months later he discovered it was missing.....

[Ries]

Kind of unbelievable- as an art shipping and handling firm, they, of all people, ought to be able to tell modern art from rubbish, and if they cant, wait a bit before tossing it.
My guess is there is more to the story, that will never be told.
I dont think it was accidentally binned. I think somebody broke it, or somehow damaged it, and they dont want to admit it.

I have a several friends who run fine art handling companies, and I know that they would all admit error, and promptly file an insurance claim- not try to get off for 500 pounds. They all carry several million dollars of liability insurance, for exactly this sort of reason.

The inside stories about dealing with extremely expensive art are pretty interesting- I know some guys who have driven trucks across the country with lead and follow cars carrying 4 extremely well armed private guards, with kevlar vests and streetsweeper automatic shotguns.
Estimated replacement value of that one truck was over $500 Million, though.