WH Smith viscountess sues Mayfair art dealer over allegations of £4.6m fraud
Washington-based widow wants dealer extradited to face trial over selling her painting for just £500,000
THE WIDOW of a British viscount whose family founded WH Smith has launched legal proceedings in Manhattan against a Mayfair art dealer, accusing him of being a “known fraudster” who tricked her into parting with a $6 million (£4.6 million) painting.
Lesley, Dowager Viscountess Hambleden, the 71-year-old widow of William Smith, 4th viscount Hambleden, claims that in 2012 she asked Timothy Sammons, a former Sotheby’s specialist, to sell The English Royal Yacht Mary About to Fire a Salute.
Her husband of 24 years was dying of cancer at the home they shared in Reno, Nevada, and Lady Hambleden wanted to access the funds tied up in art works. Her husband had already sold a castle on Dartmoor and the Hambleden estate, which was used for the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The 44 houses in the village, plus the pub, village store and 1,600 acres were bought by Urs Schwarzenbach, a Swiss financier and polo-playing friend of Prince Charles.
The couple then turned to Mr Sammons, entrusting the 1660 oil painting by Dutch marine master Willem van de Velde to the art dealer “with whom he’d had years of dealings”.
Mr Sammons, 61, ran Sotheby’s Chinese art department before setting up his own fine art agency in 1995, with an office in the Upper East Side of New York. He brokered the sale of John Singer Sargent’s painting Cashmere to the Bill Gates Foundation for a record £6.7 million in 1996.
The British art dealer paid her in advance unspecified sums from the future sale of the work, according to documents filed yesterday at the Manhattan supreme court, but claimed throughout 2013 that he still had the painting.
The following year she learned that Mr Sammons had sold the painting to a Liechtenstein gallery for the “egregiously low price” of $650,000 (£500,000), her suit says. She discovered the alleged secret sale when she found out that the painting was listed in the Netherlands for $6 million to $9 million.
Lady Hambleden, who lives north of Seattle in Washington state, said that she expects Mr Sammons to be extradited to the US to face trial.
In June, Mr Sammons lost his bid at the High Court to avoid extradition over a separate series of art fraud cases in which he is accused of stealing $10million of masterpieces by artists including Pablo Picasso, Henry Moore and Marc Chagall from wealthy clients. He faces 14 US charges of grand larceny and one of scheming to defraud. The Home Office refused to confirm whether his extradition had been approved.
Mr Sammons was declared bankrupt in January, had his passport confiscated and his £4 million home in Primrose Hill, north London, repossessed after he defaulted on loans. Contesting the extradition attempt, Mr Sammons, a father of three, claimed that his right to a family life would be severely disrupted under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act because of the financial and emotional support he gave his family. Mr Sammons told the court that contracts with clients were not “specific” over when they had to be paid by. His arguments against extradition were dismissed by District Judge Mike Snow.