#12
New York Times
November 28, 2001
ARTS ABROAD
Purloined Harem Girls, and Other Russian Mysteries
By JOHN VAROLI
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia--Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the opening of its borders, Russia's cash-starved museums, as well as private collections and churches, have come under increasing attack from thieves hoping to cash in on the country's treasures by selling them in the West.
In the 1990's hundreds of millions of dollars in art, antiques, books and manuscripts were stolen in Russia, mostly from cultural institutions in St. Petersburg like the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian National Library, the State Russian Museum, the Academy of Fine Arts and the State Hermitage Museum.
In this city, often called Russia's cultural capital and home to about 200 museums, the incident of art theft increased tenfold from 1992 to 1997, when 178 cases were reported. The figure has since held stable.
The most recent high-profile theft took place at the Hermitage in March, when "Pool in the Harem" (1876), a French painting by Jean- Léon Gérôme, was stolen. Police sealed off the museum after the painting was discovered cut from its frame, and spent hours searching thousands of visitors and staff members.
"We have contacted Interpol and are doing everything to solve this theft," said Col. Aleksandr Khozh ainov, the police officer in charge of the investigation. The police, who still have no leads, said the theft was executed professionally.
This was the second time a painting had been stolen from the Hermitage in its 240-year history. In the 1950's thieves broke in through the roof and stole two Russian paintings but were arrested weeks later. The last theft from the museum was in 1994, when an electrician stole an ancient Egyptian glass bowl. He was arrested a year later when he tried to sell it to an antiques dealer in St. Petersburg.
While Hermitage officials could not say how much the stolen painting might fetch at auction, it was insured for $1 million in 1995, when it traveled to Japan for an exhibition.
"Pool in the Harem," painted in a style known as classical realism, features an African eunuch tending to naked women in a luxurious setting. The Russian emperor Alexander III bought it in Paris in 1876 for his personal collection.
The Gérôme painting had been displayed in the Hermitage's 19th-and- 20th-century French wing, where there are also priceless works by Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Manet, Picasso and Matisse. With such pickings to choose from, the Gérôme theft appears strange, the police said, but it appears to have been the easiest target, because it was poorly guarded at that moment.
Nationwide almost one museum a month is hit by thieves in this country of about 1,500 museums, according to the Russian Culture Ministry. Last year two Rodin statues were stolen from a museum in the southern city of Volgograd, and thieves stole several Copernicus books from the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Orthodox churches, home to valuable icons, also prove to be easy targets for thieves.
Law enforcement officials say Russia's shift to a more open society has led to greater disorder following the dissolution of the Soviet police state, but Russian museums' dire financial straits add to the problem of fighting crime.
The Hermitage does not have the money to hire enough guards, usually middle-aged women, who earn the equivalent of $12 a month, the museum's director, Mikhail Piotrovsky, said. The room where the Gérôme hung was unsupervised and roped off on the day of the theft.
Part of the problem is the perception that it is easy to steal things in Russia, Dr. Piotrovsky said. "But we have worked very hard in the past few years to improve our security, even though there are still financial problems, and the people who work at the museum are not paid enough," he added. "Our museum is short about 60 watchmen, and so when we don't have enough, we have to close some rooms."
The Hermitage, with an annual budget of about $12 million, is half state financed, though in recent years it has received sponsorship for development projects from I.B.M., Coca-Cola, the Ford Foundation and other companies and private groups.
It contains nearly three million works of art, ranging from prehistoric artifacts to a vast coin collection, as well as European paintings from the Middle Ages through the early 20th century. Among its most valuable works are Leonardo's "Madonna and Child" and Rembrandt's "Return of the Prodigal Son."
While the majority of thefts in Russia are from private collections, the State Russian Museum has been hit several times in the past few years, and at one point in the mid- 1990's the Russian National Library, with nearly 25 million books and manuscripts, was being robbed regularly. The most spectacular burglary at the library was in late 1994, when thieves stole 47 medieval European and 45 ancient Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan and Hebrew manuscripts, valued at about $300 million.
The crime was the brainchild of the former head of the library's rare manuscripts department, who had emigrated to Israel. A joint operation by Israeli and Russian police lead to the arrests of nearly a dozen people in both countries and the return of the manuscripts before they left Russia.
Most stolen works are sent abroad for possible sale. In 1995 a rare edition of John James Audubon's book "Birds of America" valued at about $4 million, was stolen from the National Library and surfaced at the Berlin office of Christie's, which eventually returned it.
The St. Petersburg police, who have created a task force to deal with art crimes, say they now solves nearly half the city's art thefts. That is a far cry from 1992, when only 13 percent of such thefts were solved. Nearly all of the most valuable artworks stolen in the last decade have been recovered and the culprits put behind bars, the police said.
"No museum has a 100 percent guarantee against theft, and it seems we are always in battle against some unseen adversary," Dr. Piotrovsky said. "Well, this time, it appears they got the upper hand, and we suffered a setback. But we will continue to improve our security."