ART HEIST?

Missing Ukrainian Painting Reportedly Sold for $1M in Moscow

A painting missing from the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore may have reappeared at Moscow Auction House, where it sold for big bucks.

A painting that may have been stolen from a Ukrainian museum during Russia’s invasion of the war-torn country sold at Moscow Auction House for $1 million last week, according to ArtNet. The painting Moonlit Night by Ivan Aivazovsky was one of over 50 paintings reportedly lifted from the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore, and brought to the Simferopol Art Museum in Russian-occupied Crimea in 2017, according to the former deputy prosecutor of Ukraine, Gyunduz Mamedov. Mamedov wrote on X last week, saying that the sale of the painting violates international law, according to the 1970 UNESCO Convention which prevents the trafficking of stolen cultural property. According to Tass, a Russian news outlet, Moscow Auction House has said that it sold a different painting by Aivazovsky with the same name. The House said that the painting it sold is from 1878 and depicts Constantinople, while the painting from the Mariupol Museum depicted the coast of the Black Sea near Feodosiya. According to the New York Times, experts have described the Russian pillaging of Ukrainian cultural institutions as the “single biggest collective art heist since the Nazis pillaged Europe in World War II.”