"From the Museum of Azerbaijan did not sell any paintings"

Received an unexpected twist to the story of the sale at a London auction MacDougall paintings by Mikhail Larionov, "In the tavern" (yesterday it was sold for ? 420 thousand). Painting, according to the organizers of the auction came from the collection of the Museum of Azerbaijan. However, as reported by the newspaper "Kommersant", the Minister of Culture of Azerbaijan Polad Bulbuloglu categorically denies this information.

The origin of the trust provided a lot of potential buyers, since the museum things do not often come up for auction. Museum in Baku was once part of a very extensive, but at the same time, the highly centralized Soviet system of museums, art treasures which assigned fairly evenly throughout the former Soviet Union. That is, according to the shipping instructions from Moscow, the picture, according to experts MacDougall, and was transferred from the central fund of the museum in Baku in 1964. Further, the history of vague - like a painting fell into the hands of a private collector, who offered it to the auction, the auctioneer did not specify.

"The Minister of Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the famous singer Polad Bulbuloglu yesterday contacted the editors b and made an official statement - that the picture was sold in London, no relation to the Azerbaijan Museum no. According to the minister, all his attempts to remove the picture from the auction to clarify its origin, through diplomatic channels failed.

Head for the Conservation of Cultural Property Rosokhrankultura Viktor Petrakov commented on the situation b: "I would not make hasty conclusions about the unfairness auction house. It definitely can say that we knew nothing about it. After speaking representative of the auction house has confirmed to me that all the documents confirming the picture of provenance, the MacDougall is. I personally have not seen the document confirming the fact that the painting in his time was given to the Baku museum, because in order to get the document from the archive, you will need two to three weeks. I personally doubt that it's Ogly may say so without thinking "- quoted officials saying the newspaper.

30 November 2005