Displaying items by tag: axa art insurance

AXA Art Insurance Co. has leveled a lawsuit against Christie’s over several paintings that were destroyed last October during Hurricane Sandy. The claim states that the auction house failed to secure a valuable art collection that was being kept in one of its storage facilities in Brooklyn, New York despite the ongoing warnings about the damage Hurricane Sandy was expected to bring.

Paintings worth at least $1.5 million, which once belonged to the late cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and his chess champion wife, Jacqueline, were left on the ground floor of the storage facility where they were damaged by rising flood waters. While the suit didn’t specify which works were destroyed, the Piatigorskys’ collection included paintings by Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Chaim Soutine.

A rep for Christie’s told the New York Daily News that they have not yet been served with court papers.

Two months ago, Hurricane Sandy battered New York City and caused severe flooding in many art galleries, especially those located in Chelsea. Initially, the prominent firm AXA Art Insurance estimated that the damage they would be paying out totaled around $40 million. Due to the severity of the destroyed gallery spaces and damaged artworks, that number is now closer to $500 million. The hard-hit area is slowly recovering but many galleries remain closed and under construction.

One of the main contributors to the growing price tag on Sandy-related art losses is Pop artist Peter Max (b. 1937) who lost an entire collection of works on paper that had been stored in a flooded warehouse. The claim for the lost Max works was set at $300 million.