Christie’s allowed a cherished art collection once owned by a descendent of the Rothschild banking fortune — and including works by Monet and Degas — to suffer $1.5 million in damage during Hurricane Sandy, a new lawsuit charges.
During the storm, the famed auction house abandoned ship at its storage facility in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where it had been housing works owned by the estate of late tennis and chess champion Jacqueline Piatigorsky, according to the Manhattan Supreme Court suit.
Christie’s had collected the art from Piatigorsky’s California home after she died at age 100 last year and was storing it for sale, according to Piatigorsky’s longtime caretaker, Ianka Petrova.
“I was devastated’’ over the damage, Petrova told The Post today, adding that her former boss’s collection included works by Modigliani and Soutine.
“ I had been looking at that beautiful art for 23 years. It was a pity for this beautiful art to get wasted — it doesn’t matter the cost.
“There was a lot of damage and a lot of commotion about it,” she said.
Christie’s, which boasts of “fail-safe facilities,” put the collection in its warehouse on Imlay Street in early October 2012.
“The warehouse, located in a major flood zone, proved to be quite the opposite when Superstorm Sandy struck,” the Manhattan Supreme Court suit states.
Christie’s took no precautions to protect the art and instead “left it languishing in a processing area on the ground floor, according to the suit.
And Christie’s did so in spite of warnings by forecasters and Mayor Bloomberg — and even then laid off workers who might have protected the paintings, the suit states.
“The company had a meltdown just before Sandy made landfall, firing its warehouse manager and leaving the emergency in the hands of an inexperienced skeleton crew,” the suit reads.
What’s worse, staff lied to the estate, claiming in an e-mail Oct. 30 that “the property was safe and experienced no damage” when in fact it was wrecked by the flood and humidity, according to the suit.
The suit was filed by Piatigorsky’s estate and its insurance company. Both their lawyer and Christie’s declined comment.
jsaul@nypost.com