Yves Bouvier is back in federal court in New York.
The Swiss art dealer has asked a judge in the Southern District of New York to compel Sotheby’s to turn over records relating to the private sale of a Pablo Picasso painting, saying the documents are needed for a criminal case he recently launched in France against French art dealer Antoine Peretti.
According to court filings, Bouvier purchased Picasso’s Intimité (Femmes et Enfants) from Peretti in April 2024 for $7.25 million. Under the parties’ agreement, Bouvier says he bought the work with the expectation that it would eventually be resold, with any profit above the purchase price split evenly between the two men.
But Bouvier alleges that just weeks later the painting was resold through Milocci Limited, doing business as de Sarthe Gallery, to Sotheby’s for a net seller price of $9 million. According to the filing, Peretti never told him the painting had been resold or where the money had gone. Bouvier claims Peretti also failed to return the $7.25 million purchase price or his half of the alleged profit—about $875,000—prompting him to file a criminal complaint with the Paris prosecutor earlier this month accusing Peretti of breach of trust.
In the filing, Bouvier claims the records are needed to establish both the terms of the sale and where the money went. He is asking the court to order Sotheby’s to produce documents relating to the transaction, including the sale agreement, proof of payment, wire transfer records, and documents identifying the account or accounts that ultimately received the proceeds.
The request was filed under Section 1782, a federal statute that allows litigants in foreign proceedings to obtain evidence from people or companies located in the United States. Bouvier argues that because Sotheby’s is headquartered in New York and is not a party to the French proceeding, it is the only practical source for the documents he seeks.
The filings offer a detailed account of the alleged transaction. Bouvier says he wired the $7.25 million purchase price to Peretti’s Hong Kong account in May 2024 after insuring the painting. Weeks later, he says he learned the work had been resold through Sotheby’s. According to the filing, months of WhatsApp messages and, eventually, a formal demand letter failed to produce either an accounting of the sale or payment of the money he claims he was owed. The filings do not explain why Bouvier waited roughly two years after the alleged resale to file the criminal complaint or compel Sotheby’s, via a US federal court, to provide the documents he seeks.
For Bouvier, the filing is the latest legal twist in a personal saga that has stretched for more than a decade. He became one of the art market’s most notorious figures after Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev accused him of overcharging by as much as $1 billion on dozens of blue-chip artworks. Those allegations were rejected in courts across several jurisdictions, and in January 2024 a New York jury found Sotheby’s wasn’t liable for allegedly aiding the scheme.
More recently, Bouvier has found himself using the same US discovery process he once fought against. Last December, he filed another Section 1782 application seeking records from banks, Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and other institutions in an effort to find 91 artworks he claimed had disappeared after being entrusted to French dealer Pascal de Sarthe and longtime associate Jean-Marc Peretti.
The Peretti name is also familiar from the Rybolovlev litigation. During the 2024 trial, Sotheby’s emails described Jean-Marc Peretti—Antoine Peretti’s father—as Bouvier’s adviser and surrogate during negotiations over René Magritte’s Le Domaine d’Arnheim, a relationship Sotheby’s attorneys pointed to as they sought to distance the auction house from Bouvier’s dealings with Rybolovlev.
Neither Sotheby’s nor attorneys for Bouvier responded to ARTnews’s requests for comment prior to publication.
