Word: aryeh
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...Faberge's rare masterpieces, or rather what looks like one, is now the subject of a bitter legal battle that has scandalized the art-sales world. The combatants are Eskandar Aryeh, an Iranian-born millionaire who has filed a $37 million suit, and Christie's, the renowned London-based auction house...
...story began in 1977. Aryeh, an avid collector of Russian artifacts who had emigrated from Iran to the U.S., owned some 100 of Faberge's plain enamel eggs, which were made for ordinary collectors and not monarchs. Hearing that an Imperial egg was being auctioned off by Christie's in Geneva, he asked his sister Shahnaz, who lived in Switzerland, to try to buy it. This particular egg was supposedly commissioned for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty in 1913 by Czarina Alexandra for her husband Nicholas II. It opens to reveal a tiny statue of Nicholas astride...
After Shahnaz won the egg with a bid of $250,000, Aryeh flew to Geneva to pick up his purchase. He was disappointed with its appearance and refused to pay, fearing that it was a fake. Says Aryeh: "Faberge made very few Imperial eggs, and they are all masterpieces. The one I opened in Switzerland was junk." Christie's officials insisted the egg was genuine. After months of haggling, Christie's sued Aryeh. Finally, the auction house produced a letter from British Art Expert A. Kenneth Snowman, the world's leading authority on Faberge, who declared the egg "undoubtedly...
...Aryeh returned to his home in the U.S., a 31-room Georgian mansion in Kings Point, N.Y., where he lives with his wife and five children. Then, last June, he learned that Publisher Malcolm Forbes paid $1.76 million for a Faberge with a crowing rooster inside. The purchase gave Forbes eleven Imperial Faberges, making his the largest collection in the world--one ahead of the Armoury Museum in the Kremlin. Aryeh, hoping that his egg could fetch an equally royal bid, decided to put it on the block at Christie's in Manhattan...
...weeks before the auction, Christie's New York president, Christopher Burge, told Aryeh that the house would not sell his egg. The reason was that Snowman now said it was not an Imperial egg but rather one of Faberge's pretty but less valuable baubles. Other experts noted that several awkward features, including a protruding hinge, indicated that the egg had been embellished by some jeweler other than Faberge. Aryeh then demanded the return of his original $250,000. Christie's refused, and two weeks ago he sued...