The Metropolitan Museum of Art says a British collector’s refusal to return a painting of a portrait-gazing cow is udderly wrong.
The famed Fifth Avenue institution filed suit this morning to force Robert Wylde to hand over Mark Tansey’s “The Innocent Eye Test,” which Wylde bought for $2.5 million in 2009.
According to the Manhattan federal court filing, former owner Charles Cowles and his mother, Jan Cowles, gave the Met a 31 percent stake in the post-modern painting between 1988 and 2004, and it’s now co-owned by the museum and Jan Cowles, who’s also a plaintiff in the suit.
The 10-by-6 1/2-foot canvas was exhibited at the museum “for extended periods of time” until 2004, after which it “was placed in Charles’s possession, at his request, to be placed in his home.”
“This transfer of possession was made based on an understanding that Charles would return the painting to the museum in accordance with the museum’s rights as a co-owner,” court papers say.
But Charles Cowles — whose eponymous Chelsea art gallery went belly-up in 2009 — sold the painting to Wylde through the Gagosian Gallery, and it’s currently stashed in either the United Kingdom or Monaco, according to the Met.
A lawyer for Wylde, who in March sued the Gagosian for $6 million in damages over the deal, didn’t immediately return a request for comment.