During the art fraud case, Sotheby's is put under pressure for its role in the sale to the Russian oligarch

The painting Sotheby's was trying to sell was a newly discovered work by one of the world's greatest artists, Leonardo da Vinci. It was known as the “Salvator Mundi” and depicted Christ.

But it had a code name: Jack.

Samuel Valette, a Sotheby's specialist, testified Wednesday in a Manhattan courtroom about how one day in March 2013 he took the painting in an SUV from the auction house's headquarters on York Avenue to a prime apartment overlooking Central Park.

It was one of several trips he had made to exhibit paintings to a potential buyer, Valette said. He was accompanied as usual by security personnel and the painting, already valued at tens of millions of dollars, was in a protective case.

The apartment was owned by Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian oligarch who has sued Sotheby's, accusing the auction house of helping a Swiss dealer who he claims defrauded him in the sale of several masterpieces.

Valette said he didn't know whose apartment it was when he visited 15 Central Park West. There were two men in the house, he said: Swiss dealer Yves Bouvier, a regular customer who had arranged the viewing, and Rybolovlev, whom he had met before.

But Valette, under questioning by Rybolovlev's lawyer, Daniel J. Kornstein, insisted he had no idea who the apartment belonged to.

“Are you saying, Mr. Valette, that you arranged for this very expensive painting to be taken to an apartment, and you didn't know whose apartment it was?” Kornstein asked.

“I didn't know who owned the apartment, that's true,” Valette said, adding that the insurers only wanted to know the address and that Sotheby's would be present.

“At that time, I think Mr. Bouvier told me it was a large apartment complex on Central Park West,” he said.

Valette's mentality — what he may or may not have known in his dealings with Bouvier — is at the heart of Rybolovlev's case against the auction house, which is now the subject of a trial in federal court now in its second week in Manhattan. Valette was the Sotheby's director who handled Bouvier in the sale of the da Vinci and three other works central to the case.

In both cases, Bouvier bought the works through Sotheby's and then sold them to Rybolovlev at high prices. Rybolovlev says Bouvier deceived him by posing as his art advisor in the transactions, even pretending to negotiate with phantom third parties when he was actually the owner of the works. He has argued that Valette understood what was going on and helped him.

Sotheby's denies that. Bouvier, who is not a suspect in the case, has denied any wrongdoing and says it was always clear he was acting as an independent dealer.

After the viewing in Central Park West, which Rybolovlev said was set up to give him a chance to view the work, Bouvier bought the da Vinci for $83 million, only to sell it to Rybolovlev a day later for $127.5 million to sell.

Sotheby's officials have argued that they had no knowledge of any fraud, if it ever occurred, and made the argument during the trial that if anyone was responsible for buying overpriced art, it was Rybolovlev himself for not protecting himself from Bouvier's actions.

But for Rybolovlev, Valette is at the center of the argument that Sotheby's was knowingly part of a scheme to defraud him of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Although Rybolovlev has accused Bouvier in lawsuits of defrauding him in the purchase of 38 works, only 12 of the works were purchased by Bouvier in private sales organized by Sotheby's, and only four are at the center of the trial.

Bouvier has fought Rybolovlev's allegations in legal disputes in Europe and Asia that ended after the parties reached a confidential settlement in Geneva late last year.

Rybolovlev's lawyers have argued that Sotheby's, which earned a $3 million commission on the sale of the da Vinci to Bouvier, was guided in its actions by its interest in pleasing a man who had become an important client.

When questioning Valette on Wednesday, Kornstein asked a wide range of questions about Valette's input on the transactions between Bouvier and Rybolovlev. For example, he asked why Valette had created Sotheby's documents that Bouvier would eventually forward to Rybolovlev to persuade him to buy art; why Valette had created valuations that Rybolovlev claimed hid the markups from him; and why Valette had kept Bouvier's name out of the transaction history.

Valette responded that he knew Bouvier had resold art and that at some point he had learned that Rybolovlev was one of Bouvier's clients. But he said he never knew what works Bouvier sold to Rybolovlev and that whatever he had done were accepted practices and courtesies of specialists selling works to a buyer.

As for him, he said, “Mr. Bouvier was the buyer.”

During earlier testimony on Tuesday, Valette had told the court that he did not know Bouvier would transfer the artworks to Rybolovlev.

“I understand he was trying to sell them,” Valette said of Bouvier. “I didn't understand why he was buying them on behalf of anyone.”

During Valette's testimony on Wednesday, he was asked about an insurance appraisal Sotheby's provided for the da Vinci in 2015, after Bouvier began to suspect he had paid large markups on the works he bought through Bouvier.

The document, which was forwarded to Rybolovlev, increased the painting's insurance valuation despite the initial reservations of a Sotheby's colleague, according to court documents, and the accompanying cover letter was edited to include a reference to Bouvier's previous acquisition of the artwork to delete. .

Rybolovlev has argued that these changes were intended to help Bouvier conceal his alleged scheme.

Valette acknowledged on the stand that he had made the changes at Bouvier's request. But he said these were the kinds of changes Sotheby's would make for any high-end client and that in the end he had merely opted for a valuation approved by other Sotheby's experts.

“To be honest, I haven't thought about it,” Valette said. “He asked for these two minor changes.”

He was also asked why he had adjusted the estimated value upwards in the case of a Modigliani sculpture that Rybolovlev bought from Bouvier. He originally told Bouvier in a 2012 email that the artwork was worth at least 70 to 90 million euros, if not more, only to revise that estimate less than twelve hours later to 80 to 100 million euros. Bouvier forwarded the higher projection to Rybolovlev's assistant. Valette said the adjustment was made because Bouvier would have liked him to be more specific.

“He wanted me to clarify my thoughts,” he said.

Colin Moynihan reporting contributed.