George Weiss, a prominent Connecticut money manager, art collector and philanthropist, is suing Christie’s for breach of contract after a painting he consigned to the auction house failed to sell. Weiss, whose Hartford-based hedge fund is believed to have earned average annual returns of an astonishing 53 percent between 1996 and 2006, filed suit in March in U.S. District Court in New York on behalf of the Weiss Family Art LLC — a limited liability company that he manages for himself and his two adult daughters — claiming that Christie’s had reneged on a $40 million guarantee it offered to win the consignment of Francis Bacon’s Study for Self-Portrait, 1964. The painting, which went on the block in the house’s November 2008 evening auction of postwar and contemporary art in New York with an estimate of $40 million to $60 million, became part of a star-studded roster of pricey buy-ins that included works by such artists as Brice Marden, Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol and David Smith.

According to court papers, in negotiations that began early last summer, Christie’s gave Weiss until "at least" mid-September to decide between two options: He could either take a $40 million minimum guarantee along with "enhanced hammer" — a share of the buyer’s premium charged by the auction house — or elect to receive 108 percent of the knockdown price (including 8 percent from the buyer’s premium) without guarantee.

The hedge fund manager chose the first alternative. His art agent, the London private dealer Ivor Braka, executed and delivered a "clean, ready for signature copy of the agreement" and returned it to Christie’s by mid-September. Although the complaint does not contain language indicating whether Christie’s or Weiss had signed the guarantee agreement (the consignment agreement itself had been signed), the complaint states that the contract is "a valid and enforceable agreement" giving Weiss "a $40 million minimum price guarantee."

Weiss alleges that in August, before handing over the painting (which is now back with him), he sought reassurance that a deal was in place and was told by Christopher Burge, Christie’s star auctioneer and honorary chairman, that "papering the parties’ agreement was a mere formality."

The big question is whether a contract specifying the guarantee and signed by both parties exists. This is denied by both a source at Christie’s who, insisting on anonymity, claims that the parties had only "a traditional consignment agreement" and by someone outside the auction house, who explains that the contract wasn’t signed before Christie’s had time to withdraw its offer. One of Weiss’s attorneys, Timothy Stephens, of the New York firm Bingham McCutchen, declines to comment beyond what’s in the complaint." A Christie’s spokesperson tells Art+Auction: "We have great respect for George Weiss as a philanthropist, businessman and collector, although we disagree about this matter. Because this is a pending litigation, we will have no further comment."

This sour outcome was unexpected, given the firm’s keen interest in the picture and Bacon’s recent auction performance. In May 2008 the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich bought a 1976 triptych by the artist at Sotheby’s New York for $86 million, breaking the record set the previous May when Study from Innocent X, brought $52.6 million at the same house. In fact, Sotheby’s had competed for the Weiss consignment but was outgunned. Much of Christie’s top brass — Burge, president Marc Porter, the postwar directors Laura Paulson and Brett Gorvy and the Impressionist and modern department head Guy Bennett, among them — spent last summer courting Weiss, when the art market was still riding high and sellers with top-quality property held the upper hand.

The 60-by-55-inch painting in question is one of only four full-figure Bacon self-portraits and has a solid exhibition history, including an important 1999 multi-venue retrospective of the artist’s work. Unfortunately, it came on the market just as the financial sector was imploding worldwide.