On Tuesday, November 7, 2017, a Christie’s executive wrote, “Dear Jeffrey [Epstein], will you be coming into view our upcoming sales? Lots of exciting works worth viewing.”
Wednesday morning, he said he’d adjust his New York schedule, and she emailed right back, Great come before the weekend, “There is a large Twombly [Lot 15B] that is suitable for your large wall!”
On Thursday evening, ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️, the International Director of Impressionist & Modern Art at Christie’s, emailed a dozen in-line images, and three attachments—hi-res images, a condition report, and a catalogue scan—and some bullet points about the Twombly, Untitled (2005):
“Dear Jeffrey, Lovely to see you, as always,
…
” Untitled is over 10 feet tall, sixteen feet in length —it is the largest format canvas from the Bacchus series (only Untitled from the Pinault Collection is the same size)
…
“This painting part of set titled Bacchus Psilax Mainomenos (presented under this title in the 2005 Gagosian show): psilax means “wings,” referring to aspect of Bacchus that lifts spirit to heights of sensual pleasure/intoxication; mainomenos invokes raging Bacchus, signifying violence, rage, fury, the description of the god used by Homer in his first appearance in the Iliad“
On Friday afternoon, still in 2017, Lesley Groff, an Epstein assistant, actually emailed the Christie’s specialist, “Hi ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️, Jeffrey is asking if you have a transparency of the Twombly? (Hope I am spelling that correctly!)”
To which she responded, “Here is the high-res image and catalogue spread!” which Lesley forwarded to Jeffrey Friday night.
On Saturday afternoon, November 11, Epstein emailed ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️ to say sorry, “leon said the twombly was decorative but not great”.
Leon is presumably Leon Black, the MoMA trustee who would become chairman of MoMA’s board in 2018, and who also owns Phaidon Press, Monacelli Press, and Artspace, and whose family office, in 2017 worked with Epstein to arrange $500 million loans against certain works in his $2.7 billion art collection, and who consulted with Epstein about seemingly every art transaction they made.
On November 15, the Twombly sold for $46,437,500, presumably to neither Epstein or Black, or we’d have heard about it.
Even under the negligent non-enforcement of the criminally lax terms of Epstein’s house arrest following his secret sweetheart plea deal for underage sexual assault and exploitation, Epstein seems not to have traveled to the Vienna State Opera in 2010 or 2011, and so did not see an image of the other 10×16 Bacchus painting, so the one owned by Pinault, was blown up 12x, cropped, and printed on a 176-square meter mesh curtain mounted on the safety wall of the Vienna State Opera.
After a time at Sotheby’s, I believe ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️ moved over to Gagosian.