Who Gets This Picasso, Gagosian or the Qataris? The One Who Paid First or the One Who Paid Most?

Robin Pogrebin has a fascinating story about competing claims on a Picasso sculpture owned by Maya Widmaier-Picasso and one of the star works at MoMA’s Picasso sculpture retrospective:

In a legal action filed Tuesday morning and obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Gagosian claims that he bought the 1931 sculpture last May for about $106 million from Picasso’s daughter, Maya Widmaier-Picasso — with the advice of her daughter, Diana — and then sold the sculpture to an undisclosed New York collector who expects to receive it when MoMA’s show closes Feb. 7. […]

But Pelham Holdings, which is run by Guy Bennett who buys art on behalf of the Qatar royal family, maintains that it secured an agreement with Ms. Widmaier-Picasso in November 2014 to buy the work at 38 million euros, or about $42 million.

On Tuesday, the Gagosian Gallery filed an action against Pelham Europe in Manhattan federal court asking a judge to “quiet” any challenges or claims to its title of the artwork.

Picasso Sculpture Subject of Legal Dispute by Major Art-World Players  (The New York Times)