Eye surgeon sued by art dealer countersues for return of $349,000
Eye doctor sued by art dealer for $240,000 unpaid oil painting bill countersues for $349,000 over alleged fake pieces
Eye surgeon Natasha Lim, who is being sued by art dealer Neo Aik Siong over an alleged $240,000 unpaid bill, is countersuing him in the High Court for the return of $349,000 over alleged fake art pieces Mr Neo sold to her in earlier deals.
Among other things, Dr Lim claims that two wood sculptures by famed Indonesian artist Hendra Gunawan, for which she paid Mr Neo $120,000 in 2013, were fakes based on subsequent expert evaluation.
The High Court suit filed earlier this month comes in the wake of claims filed by Mr Neo against Dr Lim in June in the State Courts for allegedly failing to pay $240,000 for two oil paintings sold to her in April this year.
Mr Neo, 77, is the sole proprietor of First Vantage Properties, which retails artworks and paintings. He had billed Dr Lim for the two artworks by Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur, titled Balinese Woman In The Garden, worth $150,000, and The Weaving Balinese Woman At The Seaside Garden, priced at $90,000.
But in defence papers filed, Dr Lim denied that she agreed to buy the pieces and hired an art historian and expert who ascertained that the two oil paintings were fakes and the certificate produced for the $150,000 painting was also a forgery.
This development prompted her to probe the authenticity of paintings which she and her company, Dr Natasha Lim Eye Centre, purchased from First Vantage on five occasions from May 2013 to April this year.
In addition to the two wood sculptures by Gunawan, others included a self-portrait, a painting of sunflowers by Dr H. Affandi and an oil painting by Willem Gerard Hofker.
REFUND SOUGHT
She claimed that all of these, worth $349,000, were not genuine artworks and sought a refund.
This claim became the subject of Dr Lim's High Court suit against Mr Neo, for which a pre-trial conference is due next month.
In her defence in the State Court suit filed by Mr Neo, Dr Lim denied she had agreed to buy the two Le Mayeur paintings and argued that any such deal was cancelled after she found they were fakes and had told him to remove the paintings from her home.
Her lawyer Tan Joo Seng wants the court to find there was no $240,000 deal and even if there was, the deal was validly rescinded.
Mr Neo's lawyers Jaime Lye and Alfred Lim countered that the two oil paintings were bought from a supplier in Bali and the seal and certificate for the $150,000 work bore the seal and certificate of a Brussels-based art gallery.
SEAL
The gallery seal was laminated to the wooden frame and came with a laminated copy of a certificate of authenticity.
He added that he did not have a certificate available for the $90,000 piece at the time from the supplier, and denied insisting it was authentic.
He also claimed he gave a discount for The Weaving Balinese Woman At The Seaside Garden because there was no certificate of authenticity. Mr Neo added that he gave another painting to Dr Lim as a gift, as part of what she had bargained for.
He denied claims that the other items worth $349,000 were fakes.
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