Heir's Ex-Mistress Settles Case Over $47.6M Sculptures, Gets Child Custody
A wealthy German art collector has settled a New York-based legal dispute with his former mistress over ownership of two sculptures with an estimated value of $47.6 million and the custody of the couple’s 8-year-old daughter.
In exchange for over $6 million in property and cash, custody of their daughter and $5,000 per month in child support, art dealer Venetia Kapernekas tells Bloomberg, she has given up her claim to the two Damien Hirst sculptures. Udo Fritz-Hermann Brandhorst gets visitation and vacation time with his daughter.
Lawyers for Brandhorst, who is an heir to the Henkel AG & Co. consumer manufacturing company fortune, confirm the fact of the settlement but decline to discuss its terms.
The settlement, which resolves a New York City federal court case filed by Kapernekas over the sculptures and a New York County Family Court child-custody case, includes a $5 million Manhattan loft held solely in the daughter’s name and payment of a $640,000 legal bill for Kapernekas. The 49-year-old also gets a one-time payment of $100,000 and a $500,000 trust for her daughter’s education.
The couple met in 1997 when they were seated together at an art dinner in Cologne, Germany. Brandhorst’s wife, who was the great-granddaughter of the founder of Henkel’s, died of cancer in 1999.
