In 1988, investor, budding art collector, and Bahamian citizen Michael D. Dingman purchased an Amedeo Modigliani from Perls Galleries in New York. He dropped $1.44 million on the work, Portrait de femme which was subsequently consigned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s some surprise then, that twenty years later during a routine insurance inspection, Sotheby’s claimed they couldn’t authenticate the painting. That started the ball rolling on the type of problem-filled escapades found only in the lives of the super rich.
