An art collector is suing a specialist storage company for £500,000 that “lost” a large sculpture by Anish Kapoor, the Turner Prize-winning artist.

Ofir Scheps, who bought the abstract sculpture as an anniversary present for his wife, was offered £587 by the storage company, prompting him to launch legal proceedings.

The High Court was told yesterday that Mr Scheps, a collector from Geneva, bought Hole and Vessel II, which is made of wood and cement, in 2004.

He asked Fine Arts Logistics, a specialist removal and storage company based in southwest London, to collect it from Christie’s warehouse and store it for him.

Three months later, Mr Scheps tried to arrange transfer to the artist for some restoration work and discovered that the sculpture had disappeared.

Kapoor, who has spoken of his deep regret at the work’s disappearance, is best known for filling the whole of Tate Modern’s cavernous Turbine Hall with his sculpture Marsyas, shaped like an ear trumpet, in 2002.

He represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1990 and was awarded the Turner Prize in 1991. Some of his work is reported to have changed hands privately for as much as $22 million (£11.2 million).

Mr Justice Teare was told that the storage company said that Kapoor’s 1984 sculpture, which is numbered to distinguish it from an earlier work, had been lost.

Elspeth Rice, Mr Scheps’s counsel, questioned how this might be possible considering that the work measures about 1m by 1.6m by 1m before it is crated.The defendant disputes the value of the art-work and also the date at which the compensation should be set because there was a large rise in prices between the date of the loss and the date of claim.

Ms Rice said that her client wanted to recover the work, not monetary compensation, but because the work had disappeared he was seeking damages.

The secrecy of the art market and the seemingly casual way of dealing with multimillions of pounds emerged during questioning. Through an interpreter, Mr Scheps, who claimed to have supervised many transports of works of art on behalf of his local museum in Geneva, was asked if he knew that the standard Swiss transporters’ liability is limited to the equivalent of 15.5 Swiss francs (£6.40) per kilo (2.2lb).

The sculpture is reported to weigh about 800kg, suggesting maximum compensation of about £6,000.

Mr Scheps said that he had not looked at the small print of transporters’ terms and conditions.

It emerged during questioning that Mr Scheps had purchased the work from a private collector for $35,000 while it was stored at Christie’s awaiting auction.

Asked why he had been reluctant to reveal that price, it was suggested to him by defence counsel that it would spoil his case for valuing it at £550,000.

He denied the suggestion, saying: “In private sales, the norm is that you don’t disclose prices once a deal is done.”

Nicholas Logsdail, Kapoor’s dealer, dismissed a slightly disparaging assessment of the sculpture’s value by one of his former assistants at the gallery.

Asked by the claimant’s counsel about how much Kapoor expertise she had, he said: “Probably as much as you have.” He added: “In all my experience, I’ve never seen something of that size vanish.”

Giving evidence, Johanna Hall, of Christie’s, said that the auction house filled in a customs’ form with £46,500, the estimate when the seller had intended to auction it.

But Mr Logsdail emphasised that auction records of the last year were particularly strong, with another Kapoor selling at Sotheby’s a few days ago for £602,400, with commission.

There was considerable argument in court about what might happen if the work were found after damages were paid.

Mr Scheps’s statement of claim, it was alleged, wanted both the sculpture and the compensation. The claimant denied this, however, and agreed that if it ever turned up then, to some extent, the damages would be repaid.

The case continues.

Anish Kapoor

— Indian-born British abstract sculptor

— Settled in London in 1973 and studied at Hornsey College of Art, and at Chelsea School of Art

— Early work was in light materials and brightly coloured

— In the late 1980s he moved into stone, steel and PVC sculptures that blur the line between sculpture and architecture Represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1990

— Awarded the Turner Prize in 1991

— Marsyas, exhibited at the Tate Modern in 2002, is ten storeys high and one of the world’s largest indoor sculptures

Source: Debretts, Who’s Who, Times databse

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