Back Van Gogh’s most expensive painting goes missing, 85 million dollars, an even more shocking secret is hidden. a detective story that impressed new York TimesWho has delved into the depths of this enigma in an investigation that has led to nothing short of incredible implications, involving the Chinese secret police and a financial genius who later became a figurehead.
An intricate story, with strong colors, worthy of a best seller, except that what happened did not come from the imagination of a famous writer, but from a reality that still has many dark sides. It all started in the offices in November 2014 sotheby’s In Manhattan, during an auction in which one of the last works of the Flemish painter Van Gogh is put up for sale: Still Life, Vase with Daisies and Poppies, The auction base already has a stratospheric price, $23 million, but we expect, with the packed hall poised to soar, an even more stellar sale.
millionaire auction
In addition to the attendees, many also participate in the sale by telephone, and during the conversation an offer comes from China that takes everyone by surprise: $62 million, an amount never paid for a Van Gogh painting. Oblivion comes out in the open. In fact, he not only states his name, wang zhongjunbut releases interview emphasizing his role as a filmmaker who financed the blockbuster Fury by playing brad pitt,
The painting ends up in the buyer’s home in Hong Kong for a few months, then is displayed in a museum in Beijing owned by the tycoon, along with other pieces from his collection. Despite the iconic masterpieces, the museum has a short life and fails in 2022, vanishing, as do the van Goghs that hang in its rooms. The first hypothesis is that the masterpiece was transferred to the property of one of Wang’s financiers, who at the time of purchase admitted to being a participant in the acquisition, although did not reveal his name.
“poor” figurehead
The name of the invoice issued by Sotheby’s for auction is helong liu, Entrepreneur by profession, owner of a financial company in the British Virgin Islands. In fact, the “wealthy” Mr. Liu is nothing more than an elderly gentleman who lives in a popular district of Shanghai, so he is, for all intents and purposes, a figure of some wealthy man who differs from Wang in that he remains anonymous. Wanted to have. The New York Times speculates that xiao jianhuaThe Chinese superfinancier who had six billion dollars in assets in his portfolio and managed the affairs of important political families of the People’s Republic of China, also had some skeletons in the closet to hide.
As a very young student protest leader in Beijing, he survived the Tiananmen repression, later becoming a financial genius. It is a dense network of brokerage houses, banks, insurance companies and major coal and real estate investments. owning to tomorrow group, many of its properties actually belonged to characters from the country’s highest economic and political circles. After sifting through invoices from several companies, an invoice issued by Sotheby’s for the purchase of the painting turns up for $61,765,000.
Intervention of Chinese special agents
This complex network of companies with big-name owners probably explains what happened to Zia, who until then lived in a suite at the Four Seasons Hotel surrounded by a team of female bodyguards. One night in January 2017 an attack is made by special agents of the Chinese police, who overpower the bodyguards and take him away in a wheelchair, probably drunk. the reason? Xiao probably knew too much; He was aware of many facts and many names which should not have come out on the basis of a certain policy of the world famous country.
On the website of his group TomorrowGroup, a message appeared thereafter, perhaps too naively placed to be credible, to assure his disappearance: “They didn’t kidnap me and didn’t take me to China, I am abroad for treatment, I will come back after treatmentThe care, or “treatment”, lasted until 2022, although in 2019 it was leaked that the man: “aAgreed to cooperate with Chinese justice”, He was eventually sentenced to 13 years in prison on charges of the following: “Market manipulation and bribing government officials“, for illegal operations worth 20 billion dollars.
What happened to the painting?
But what happened to Van Gogh in all this? Was it bought for the love of art or to cover a round of money that was about to touch the upper echelons of the Republic of China? It’s hard to say, the latest information on this case, I want to sell it privately for $ 70 million, but who remains, and probably will remain a real mystery.