Synopsis
When an unknown bidder paid $95 million for Picasso’s Dora Maar au Chat at Sotheby’s in May 2004, the art world snapped to attention—but no one knew who he was. Described by one dealer as looking “more like a KGB agent than a collector,” the man outbid titans like Paul Allen and Steve Wynn from the auction’s hinterlands, then vanished into mystery. Dealers speculated he was a proxy for a new Russian oligarch, but few were willing to confirm anything on record: “Telling you would be like putting a bullet in my head,” one said. In the final paragraph, I dropped my own theory—that the true buyer was Georgian mining magnate Boris Ivanishvili. EPILOGUE: A fews years later, it turned out that my guess was right!
