The Gulbenkian foundation was actually established to be independent from the family, though its bylaws state that the board would preferably have one direct descendant of Calouste Gulbenkian. He was a major investor in oil interests with Royal Dutch Shell, and held a 5 percent stake in the Iraq Petroleum Co. “Mr. Five Percent,” as he was known, eventually built up one of the world’s greatest private art collections. Today, his great-grandson, Martin Essayan, sits on the foundation’s board.

Angela Gulbenkian often told clients that she bought art for the foundation and attended its board meetings, according to interviews with dealers, collectors and advisers. In a 2017 interview with the Portuguese business-news website Jornal de Negocios, Gulbenkian ruled out the scenario of having any job or interference in the daily management in the foundation. She did envision one of Kusama’s signature pumpkin sculptures in the foundation’s gardens. “It would be breathtaking,’’ she said.

‘Fooled by the Name’
It’s a 179-pound, yellow polka-dotted Kusama pumpkin that sits at the center of the London case.

Mathieu Ticolat, an art adviser based in Hong Kong, claims his firm paid Gulbenkian $1.375 million for the pumpkin, according to papers filed in the High Court in London. Gulbenkian said she represented the anonymous seller. Two money transfers, in April and May of 2017, were made to Gulbenkian’s account at HSBC in London, according to court papers.

Ticolat’s firm says the pumpkin never arrived. After months of pleading and threatening, he filed the civil suit, which included a motion to freeze Gulbenkian’s assets that the judge granted.

“I got fooled by the name,” Ticolat said by phone from Hong Kong.

The work was sold to someone else in late 2017, but Gulbenkian continued to indicate she was trying to get the work to Ticolat, according to the lawsuit.

In the the London High Court this month, Gulbenkian produced an email that she said was from the owner: Martin Winterkorn. A separate WhatsApp message viewed by Bloomberg suggests she was referring to the one-time head of Volkswagen. Winterkorn’s lawyer said in an email that was never the case; the former CEO doesn’t even know Gulbenkian.

However this plays out, it shows just how tricky it’s getting to navigate the murky world of art deals, according to Todd Levin, an art adviser in New York who isn’t tied to the Kusama sale and doesn’t know Gulbenkian.

“When the art market gets really frothy,’’ he said, “all sorts of strange characters come out of the woodwork.”