NEW YORK, NY.- New York City art and jewelry buyer/seller Lee Rosenbloom and his retail APR 57 Gallery at 200 West 57th Street have been named as defendant in a new civil lawsuit filed in Civil Court of the City of New York January 30th, 2025.
NY based publicist James Sliman filed the suit after Mr. Rosenbloom would not sell him back a 17th Century Old Master drawing, as agreed when he bought it back in late. January 2023.
According to Sliman, he sold Rosenbloom the piece, along with three other artworks, under the premise that he could buy it back for a reasonable price within a fair amount of time. This drawing was the one piece Sliman stipulated he would want to buy back, because of the personal, sentimental value it has to him. All Sliman is asking for in the legal action is to buy back the drawing as agreed, which he originally purchased from Sotheby’s Old Master Drawings sale back in February 2013, cataloged as “Circle of Andrea Sacchi”
Just four weeks after he sold the four pieces to Rosenbloom, Sliman contacted him via phone calls and texts on March 3rd, 2023 saying he was ready to buy the drawing back, but Rosenbloom pretended he misplaced it and didn’t know where it was. He said he would have to find it and call him back to discuss a price. That was the last I heard from him.
Johannes Klinkenberg (Dutch, 1852-1924) - Sketch of a Nude Woman. Oil on board.
Sliman kept calling but Rosenbloom no longer answered the phone or replied to text messages. Sliman even tried calling and texting one of Rosenbloom’s female assistants, but never got a response.
When Sliman started checking into this man online, he was disappointed to find multiple lawsuits filed against Rosenbloom, who is no stranger to illegal, fraudulent accusations. One such lawsuit was even filed by a representative of Rolex Watch Co. for copyright infringement.
He also found out that Rosenbloom changed his business name at various times from Plaza 57 to Plaza Collectibles and then APR57 Gallery, all at the same address at 200 West 57th Street. Here are a few of those legal actions:
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nysdce/1:2019cv07514/520918
https://unicourt.com/case/ny-loc1-jurich-jack-vs-rosenbloom-lee-apr57-plaza-57-appraisal-982357
https://trellis.law/doc/84506175/summons
Rosenbloom was also accused of stealing people’s high-end watches and jewelry. ABC TV News here in NYC sent camera crews to talk to him on camera four times. He refused to talk with them each time until they finally surprised him and got some remarks on camera. This segment aired on ABC News “NINA PINEDA ABC NEWS - 7 On Your Side” in April 2016,
https://abc7ny.com/7-on-your-side/1315820/
ABC TV News stated in their story “Lee Rosenbloom is no stranger to 7 On Your Side, having made four appearances on Eyewitness News. And that's a franchise record. Rosenbloom's jewelry stories have garnered the most complaints of any other in our area, with the problems spanning nearly two decades and the consumers’ frustration so similar.”
“The one time I was in his shop on January 27th, 2023, I witnessed no less than 3-4 other people coming to pick up their watches from his watch repair counter. He used the same excuse to each person….”oh they’re running late but you can come here on Sunday. I’ll be in on Sunday.” One lady was so mad she started to cause a scene demanding her watch and he ignored her. As the ABC TV News even showed, he was using the same “come back on Sunday” scam back then, just like I heard him say myself to 3-4 people in his shop.”
“Then on the other side of his shop I watched a girl dressed in very flashy clothes & shoes looking at many watches for sale. She was there the whole time I was. She ended up buying a handful of watches totaling about $40,000 and paid with a large stack of cash. Mr. Rosenbloom came back over to me, as he saw I was watching this, and told me “she brings her boyfriend’s “weed” money here”. “I believe that is some type of money laundering.”
With everything he discovered online, Sliman thought things couldn’t get much worse. By this time, many months had gone by and Sliman decided to check back again on the APR57 Gallery website to see if his drawing might pop up. What he found first was one of the other small pieces of artwork he had sold to Rosenbloom; this one an “Attributed to Johannes Klinkenberg (Dutch, 1852-1924) - Study of a Nude Woman, oil on board” which Sliman purchased at Capo Auction several years prior. Rosenbloom also paid Sliman about $750 for this one and there it was listed as “Sold” on the APR57 Gallery website. Rosenbloom has it listed as being sold for $39,000 (after he first priced it at $49,000) with the title 'J.C Karle Klinkenberg' Oil Painting Portrait of a Nude Woman, also claiming it has an appraisal of $100,000 with a Certificate of Appraisal (COA). In my opinion, this is all completely false and the COA is fabricated. That can be corroborated. Yet, Rosenbloom claims someone actually believed him and paid him $39,000. I know for a fact this little painting is worth only a fraction of that….maybe $2,500 at most. See link:
https://www.apr57.com/products/rare-oil-painting-portrait-of-a-nude-woman-signed-klinkenberg-100k-apr-w-coa
“Then, as I searched a little further on his website, there it was, my drawing”, says Sliman, which Sotheby’s Old Master Drawings Dept. had cataloged as in the “Circle of Andrea Sacchi”. Rosenbloom has it listed as CARLO MARATTA/MARATTI, Nude Man Le, C. 1710. He has it priced at $9,900 with a supposed appraised value of $40,000, also with a phony COA. This, in my opinion, is also fraudulent, which he is fully aware of.
A friend of mine in the art world has had actual world-class Old Master drawings experts examine this piece and no one had been able to determine who the artist is, but they were quite sure it was not Carlo Maratta or Andrea Sacchi. See link:
https://www.apr57.com/collections/drawings-illustrations/products/carlo-maratta-maratti-nude-man-le-17th-18th-century-apr-40k-w-coa#
Where, in fact, are these so-called “appraisals” coming from ? “I believe Rosenbloom just makes them up himself”, says Sliman.
“As recently as just a month ago, I have continued to text Mr Rosenbloom. Those texts have all been ignored, as were my previous phone messages.”
As of today, my drawing is still there and is priced at $9,900.00. It is common knowledge to people in the art world that a drawing like this, with no proof of who the artist is, might be worth around $2000 at the most. But this man is trying to get $10,000 for it by listing it with a phony appraisal that he did himself and by saying it is by a specific artist, which he has no way of determining.
“In my strong opinion, Mr. Rosenbloom has no valid expertise that can be verified in the areas of art and antiques. He is, in my opinion, a charlatan and a thief. All he does is has his young shop employees go online and try to find similar artwork, then creates a phony background and does a phony appraisal for whatever he is trying to sell. I firmly believe all this merits a much more involved investigation into this man and his business dealings.”
“But, all I really want right now is to get my drawing back from him and will pay him what he paid me for it, plus a small fair profit. I think that’s more than reasonable.”
