It is the saga of one of the world’s biggest art-dealing dynasties, known for its staggering collection of old master paintings as well as its fraught family battles, including one ex-wife who was said to have spent vast amounts on plastic surgery to look more like a cat.
The complex financial affairs of the celebrated Wildenstein art clan are likely to be laid bare this month as the family – known in the French art world as simply “les W” – becomes the subject of one of the biggest tax fraud trials ever held inFrance.
The trial, which opened on Monday in Paris, will see several members of the wealthy Franco-American family in the dock, accused of hiding hundreds of millions of euros in inheritance money in offshore tax havens.
The family patriarch Guy Wildenstein, 70, a close friend and party donor to the former rightwing president Nicolas Sarkozy, could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of tax fraud and money laundering.
Wildenstein is the heir of three generations of wealthy art dealers and racehorse breeders. His great-grandfather Nathan Wildenstein was an Alsace cloth merchant who amassed a large art collection that was continued by his son Georges, a patron of Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst.
When Hitler’s Germany invaded France, Georges fled to the US. His son Danielexpanded the family’s art empire to make it one of the biggest private collections in the world, ranging from Renoir and Caravaggio to El Greco and Monet, and cementing his own reputation as an art dealer, collector and historian.
Such was the family’s wealth that Daniel’s second wife, Sylvia, once described to her lawyers how, during a cruise in the West Indies, their yacht was caught up in a storm. The crew tried to enter ports in Haiti and the Dominican Republic but they were too small. Finally, they struggled into a bay in one of the Virgin Islands. To mark their lucky survival, Daniel bought the island.
But the family’s personal battles were to tear them apart. After Daniel died aged 84 in Paris in 2001, Sylvia accused her stepsons of tricking her out of her inheritance by claiming their father died broke. She once told a French magazine: “I knew something was wrong when they took away my horses,” and she battled for years to hunt down the missing “treasure”, including several master paintings.
Jocelyn Perisse, who had a messy divorce from Alec Wildenstein, reportedly had cosmetic surgery to make her look more feline. Photograph: Jamie McCarthy/WireImage
She died in 2010 after having likened the battle to the soap opera Dallas. Several women who felt hard done by at the hands of the Wildenstein men later forced the family to lift the veil of secrecy over its fortune. Daniel’s son, Alec Wildenstein, who died in 2008, had become famous on the society pages for his messy divorce from the Swiss socialite Jocelyn Perisse, nicknamed “Bride of Wildenstein” for her facial cosmetic surgery, which her ex-husband has reportedly said was intended to make her face look more feline.
The month-long trial will consider accusations against Guy Wildenstein and other family members that they hid more than €550m after the death of Daniel Wildenstein in 2001 and Guy’s brother, Alec, in 2008.
The list of assets to be discussed in court is likely to be eye-watering, from the family’s 30,000-hectare private compound and wildlife sanctuary in Kenya, where parts of the film Out of Africa were shot, to racehorses, stables, a New York apartment, dozens of paintings and a Gulfstream jet.
Described as the “trial of the missing millions”, it raises questions not just about one family but a whole system and style of financial management in opaque offshore trusts. Guy is appearing alongside his nephew, Alec Jr, and Alec’s widow, Liouba Stoupakova. A notary, two lawyers and two managers of secret trusts held in Guernsey and the Bahamas are also in the dock.
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