Judge to decide if Marlborough Gallery sabotaged rival’s ceramics deal

A New York Supreme Court judge will decide alone whether Marlborough Gallery, once one of the art world’s most powerful galleries, helped torpedo a rival dealer’s multimillion-dollar ceramics project.

After nearly seven years in state court, and more than a decade of litigation spanning Manhattan and Paris, the dispute between S.A.R.L. Galerie Enrico Navarra and Marlborough Gallery is headed to a bench trial beginning March 2.

The litigation has ricocheted through multiple courts. Navarra first sued Marlborough in federal court in 2010. A district judge dismissed the claims in 2017. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit revived them in 2018, finding disputed facts that required trial. The case was later dismissed on jurisdictional grounds and refiled in New York in 2019.

By the time this case finally reaches trial, nearly all of the central figures are gone. The French-Chinese painter Chu Teh-Chun died in 2014. Pierre Levai, Marlborough Gallery’s longtime co-president and a named defendant in the suit, died in February 2024, months before his gallery closed. And Paris dealer Enrico Navarra, who brought the claims in New York in 2019, died in 2020.

The courtroom fight that is about to unfold will proceed without any of the principal actors able to testify live, leaving the judge to sift through emails, contracts and other evidence from people who can no longer take the stand.