The Scandal Sweeping Russia's Art Market

January 2006 Forgers have been retouching hundreds of works by minor European artists, putting the signatures of major Russian artists on them and selling them for many times their worth. The signature of Russian painter Boris Kustodiev was added to German painter Ludwig von Langenmantel's 'Woman in a Blue Dress'and the painting was retitled 'At the Mirror'. The first sign of trouble was the appearance of a painting at Sotheby's London in May 2004 attributed to the famous Russian landscape painter Ivan Shishkin. The star lot in the spring Russian sale, it was given a high estimate of 700,000 ($1.28 million) and was described in the catalogue as a rare example - a piece completed during Shishkin's sojourn in Switzerland. Unfortunately, the painting was not by Shishkin or any other Russian painter. It had been sold a year earlier by the auction house Bukowskis in Stockholm for $56,000, a fraction of the Sotheby's estimate. At the Bukowskis sale, it was attributed, correctly, to the 19th-century Dutch painter Marinus Koekkoek. The painting was then sent to Moscow, where it underwent some changes. Four small human figures and a lamb were subtracted and Shishkin's signature was added. Then the picture was taken to the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, where it was certified by the museum's department of expertise as a rare example of Shishkin's early work. Next, according to a reliable source in Moscow, them painting was resold and smuggled to London by its new owner, who put it up for sale at Sothebys. It was withdrawn the day before the auction. The incident surprised dealers and collectors in Russia, but they didnt guess the extent of the fraud until the arrest last October of two gallery owners for selling doctored paintings. Moscow art historian Vladimir Petrov revealed how vast the scope of the problem was. He had become suspicious even before the Sothebys auction that Western paintings were being sold as the works of Russians and had identified more than 100 such works. Executed by minor 19th-century realistsfrom Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Austria, England and the Netherlandsthey were bought on the Western art market for prices ranging from a few thousand dollars to about $50,000 or $60,000 and resold, after Russification, for sums as high as $100,000rising and in rare cases, to more than $1 million. Last October Tatiana and Igor Preobrazhensky, owners of the Russian Collection gallery in St. Petersburg, were arrested by Russian authorities in Moscow. Tatiana resisted arrest, according to press reports, and made a grab for a policemans gun, but she was disarmed before she could shoot. Both Preobrazhenskys were indicted for large-scale fraud, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. The couple had been introduced to Valery Uzzhin, a wealthy Moscow businessman who was collecting 19th-century Russian art. Uzzhin was particularly interested in the works of Alexander Kiselev (18381911), a landscape painter who was a member of the Wanderers group. The Preobrazhenskys had a seemingly endless supply of canvases by his favorite artist, and over a three-year period they allegedly sold him $3 million worth. Some of his friends expressed doubts about the authenticity of his new acquisitions, but Uzzhin was convinced that the paintings were genuine. They had, after all, been certified by experts at the respected Grabar All-Russian Artistic Scientific Restoration Center in Moscow. A friend showed him a catalogue from a northern European auction house, in which Uzzhin saw reproductions of two paintings in his collection. To his astonishment, they were attributed to minor European artists. Uzzhin showed his collection to experts at the Moscow Art Consulting Center and was told that it consisted entirely of doctored 19th-century European paintings. He went to the police. After the Preobrazhensky arrests, police searched the premises of the Grabar Restoration Center and interrogated expert Tatiana Goryacheva, who had certified all of Uzzhins "Kiselevs." The investigation is still in an early stage. The police are looking for the people who supplied the doctored paintings to the Preobrazhenskys. They will not reveal the names of the suspects, some of whom, according to sources close to the investigation, have not yet been apprehended. The Preobrazhensky arrests gave rise to fantastic rumors in Russian art circles.