The latest court case involves an action brought by Lesley, Dowager Viscountess Hambleden, the widow of William Smith, 4th Viscount Hambleden, whose family founded high street retailer WH Smith. She claims Sammons undervalued the family’s painting The English Royal Yacht Mary About to Fire a Salute by Willem van de Velde the Younger.
According to reports, documents filed in the supreme court in New York claim Sammons paid Lady Hambleden an unknown sum in advance for the future sale of the work. Lady Hambleden claims she discovered that Sammons had secretly sold the painting for the "egregiously low price" of $650,000 to a gallery in Liechtenstein. She says she was only aware of this when she discovered the work was listed in the Netherlands for $6m-9m.
Last month however, it sold at auction at Sotheby’s Old Masters evening auction for a premium-inclusive £812,750.
Lady Hambleden’s pursuit of Sammons is the latest in a string of cases against him.
He has been accused of failing to have paid wealthy clients the proceeds from sales of artworks he sold on their behalf valued in excess of $10m by artists including Van Gogh, Canaletto, Picasso, Chagall, Modigliani and Magritte. Sammons has contested the extradition attempt and told the court that contracts with clients were not “specific” over when they had to be paid.
In June he lost his battle at the High Court to avoid extradition. He has been declared bankrupt, had his passport confiscated and his north London home repossessed after he defaulted on loans.
Sammons, a trained solicitor and former Sotheby's specialist, set up his own fine art agency in 1996. In the same year he brokered the sale of John Singer Sargent's painting Cashmere to the Bill Gates Foundation for a record-breaking £6.7m.
