A high-profile spat has broken out between the 30 Rock actor Alec Baldwin and the New York dealer Mary Boone over a painting by the artist Ross Bleckner, according to the New York Times.
Baldwin says that he bought a painting by Bleckner that he had admired for nearly a decade after seeing it in an exhibition invitation from Boone. The work, Sea and Mirror (1996), had earlier sold at auction at Sotheby’s for $121,000 to an anonymous buyer. Baldwin asked Boone to convince the owner to part with it, and he says she told him she’d succeeded, selling it to him for $190,000. But the actor grew suspicious when he noticed that the painting he owned smelled new, appeared brighter and “lacked a feathery quality” that Baldwin admired in the original painting.
According to Boone’s lawyer, Baldwin was told that he would be getting a different version of the work, and “he should not have misunderstood what he purchased”. But in a recent email, the New York Times reports, Boone told Baldwin that she is still working to get the original painting he wanted.