Director of the State Hermitage museum complex Mikhail Piotrovsky.
Photo: Evgeny Pavlenko
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Mikhail Piotrovsky: we are creating precedent
Collection of Anhalt silver came from State Storage. There were no documents on confiscation these items from somebody. The General Prosecutor’s office has been investigating the case and found no legal grounds to send the items to the Anhalt prince’s heirs. Only legal resolutions are needed: if we are talking about items exemption from museum fund, that is possible only in case of having a decision of a court, or if it’s found out that the items went there by mistake. In our case we have none of it. And here comes a question. If we want to give the collection to the prince Anhalt’s heirs on a good will, then why we cannot give the collection to Sergey Shchukin? We’re creating a precedent. We have a lot of people who had suffered from confiscation. We should think twice before we make a decision. Accession, taxation responsibilities, all that should be discussed before the decisions like that are made.
Hermitage’s point of view is a part of our general position on the questions regarding the so-called trophy art. If it is a question of taking items from the state museum fund, the federal government, not some officials, should make the decision. State Duma’s decidion is the decision of the whole Russia. We have a lot of papers from the officials of the early soviet era who decided to sell the pictures of Rafael, van Eyck, Botticelli, Titian, Rembrandt and lot of others. We don’t want more of these papers.
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 01, 2005
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