A Soulages sold in 2025, now claimed in court

On 17 November 2025, Christie’s in New York sold a painting by Pierre Soulages. The hammer price was $4 million, according to ARTnews. The price was $4,955,000 including the buyer’s premium, below the estimate of $5 million to $7 million. It was one of 18 works sold that night from the collection of Robert and Patricia Weis, the founders of the Weis Markets supermarket chain.

The painting is an oil on canvas of 161.9 by 201.6 centimetres. Soulages made it in 1958 in his Paris studio and wrote the date, 14 November, on the stretcher. It is no. 348 in the catalogue raisonné of his paintings. It was shown at the Kootz Gallery in New York in 1959. Christie’s lists the next owner as Mrs William Zeckendorf, then the Gimpel and Weitzenhoffer gallery, and then the Weises, who acquired it in 1984. Both sides in the later dispute agree that Marion Zeckendorf, the wife of the New York developer William Zeckendorf Sr., bought it from Kootz in 1959.

What happened next is contested. On 13 July 2026 two of William Sr.’s grandsons, William Lie Zeckendorf and Arthur W. Zeckendorf, and two beneficiaries of a family trust, James and Leslie Nicholson, sued the Weis estate in New York State Supreme Court. They allege that the painting passed in 1977 to a trust under Marion’s will and was probably stolen that year. They say it was missing by 1980, when the trust ended. William Sr. died in 1976 or 1977; the sources differ. The plaintiffs seek the sale proceeds, not the painting. They also call a 1984 invoice from the Niveau Gallery “a fabrication”. That is an allegation in a complaint.

The Art Loss Register, a private database of lost art, listed a Soulages of this title from 2008 to 2025. Its director, James Ratcliffe, told ARTnews that the entry had no image, so it was hard to be sure it was the same painting. He said the person who registered it gave no further information and did not want the register to stand in the way of the sale. The register removed the entry. Christie’s told ARTnews it had resolved the issue before the sale, and that any remaining financial dispute does not concern it. The court papers say both sides agreed the sale could proceed, with the proceeds held in escrow.

The Weis estate rejects the claim. Its lawyer, Paul Cossu of Pryor Cashman, called it “baseless”. The estate says Robert Weis bought the painting for $35,000 from the Niveau Gallery in August 1984, and calls that a fair, arm’s-length deal. It says nothing had been reported to police or insurers then, and that the Art Loss Register had no entry until 2008. It says the Zeckendorf account has changed between letters, and that Marion may have bought a second 1958 Soulages that the trust papers confuse with this one. A lawyer for the Zeckendorfs declined to comment.

No court has ruled, and no source reports a police report or a criminal charge. Nobody has been found to have stolen the painting. The buyer is not named and holds the work. The latest dated item is the Weis estate’s answer and counterclaim of 22 September 2026. It asks the court to find that the estate had lawful prior ownership and is entitled to the $4 million in escrow.