Actually, the oligarch Dmitri Rybolovlev just wanted to hang a da Vinci in his study. But the billionaire’s plan turned into the biggest art crime thriller of the century so far.
The idea of buying art came to Dmitri Rybolovlev when he looked at the empty walls of the new villa in Cologny on Lake Geneva. Cables and light bulbs hung from the plaster; the previous owner had illuminated his pictures appropriately. “Either something had to be rebuilt on the walls or the house,” the Russian concluded, as he reported in court in January.
Source: Stern
