An enormous porcelain centerpiece that was among the top presale lots in Sotheby's Russian art sales last week is now at the center of a legal dispute, in which a Great Neck man claims that the dealer who put the piece up for auction stole it from his home and then told him he would be killed by the Russian mafia if he tried to recover it.
The day before the auction, Elyaho Malekan contacted Sotheby's through his lawyer, claiming that the ...
Read the full story by Kate Taylor in the The New York Sun