SHELL GAME?

Dealer Says Hermitage Museum’s Faberge Show Is Full of ‘Tawdry Fakes’

The items in question come from another museum owned by an oligarch.

A scandal is brewing over the Hermitage Museum’s Fabergé show, Artnet News reports. “The Hermitage is the pride of Russia and belongs to the world’s cultural heritage. Your ‘Fabergé’ exhibition is dragging it through the gutter,” London dealer Andre Ruzhnikov, an expert on Fabergé, wrote to the head of the St. Petersburg museum. He alleges that some 20 items in the exhibition are “tawdry fakes” culled from an oligarch’s private museum. The oligarch, Alexander Ivanov, provided documentation for some of the supposed knock-offs, but Artnet News found discrepancies in them. The museum director has not responded to the accusations.