Art critic Nina Moleva and her $2 billion collection

Died writer, art critic and historian Nina Moleva. In April 2013, she bequeathed a collection of about 200 paintings to President Vladimir Putin as Russia’s legal representative. What the art historian is known for and what is included in the collection is in the Kommersant reference.

Moleva Nina Mikhailovna was born on December 5, 1925 in Moscow. In 1945 she graduated from the Higher Theater School. M. S. Shchepkin at the Maly Theater, in 1947 – the art history department of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University.

In 1936 she received first prize at the All-Union Children’s Competition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Pushkin’s death. In 1936–1942, she led ceremonial October and May concerts at the Bolshoi Theater, as well as government concerts in the Kremlin. According to her, Joseph Stalin at one of her speeches called her “the symbol of the Russian girl.”

In March 1939, she led the delegation of USSR schoolchildren at the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and was elected chairman of the Moscow schoolchildren activist group.

On June 22, 1941, after the German attack on the USSR, she addressed Soviet schoolchildren on the radio with an appeal to consider themselves “mobilized without agendas.”

At the beginning of the war, she worked as a nurse and operating nurse in a triage hospital. In December 1941, she became deputy head of the theatrical and entertainment brigade for servicing front-line units. She was demobilized with the rank of senior lieutenant.

In May 1942, she received a diploma of an artist-reader of the highest category, performing a solo concert in the October Hall of the House of Unions.

In 1945 she was included in the troupe of the Maly Theater. In 1947, she began leading a student seminar at Moscow State University on Russian art of the 18th century, and published her first works in scientific periodicals.

From 1950 to 1969 – art consultant for the cultural department of the Party Central Committee and the Pravda publishing complex. Since 1952 – member of the Union of Artists of the USSR.

In 1955, she married the artist Eliya Belyutin, and together with her husband she published her first book, “P. P. Chistyakov. Theorist and teacher,” organized the exhibition “Chistyakov and his students” in the halls of the USSR Academy of Arts. She worked on a four-volume monograph on the theory of Russian fine art from the mid-17th century to October 1917, laying the theoretical foundations of the artistic direction “New Reality”.

From 1958 to 1964 she taught a psychology course on the creation and perception of a work of art at the Higher Literary Courses of the Union of Writers of the USSR.

Since 1966 – member of the presidium of the board, chairman of the methodological council of the Moscow city organization of the All-Russian Society for the Preservation of Historical and Cultural Monuments (MGO VOOPIK).

Since 1968, she traveled with a course of lectures on Russian and Slavic cultures to Paris, Warsaw, Milan, and taught at universities in Switzerland. In 1975–1989 she organized and led the Stage Story Theater. From 2000 to 2008 – member of the commission on monumental art at the Moscow City Duma.

He is the author of a number of monographs, articles, essays and essays; some of his works have been translated into Polish, Italian and French.

After the death of her husband on February 27, 2012, she inherited a collection of artworks. It includes about 1 thousand items, of which approximately 200 works are paintings by painters. The collection allegedly includes works by Michelangelo, Rubens, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Donatello, El Greco, Poussin, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Velazquez and others. Experts from the French auction house Hotel Drouot estimated the collection at $400 million; Nina Moleva herself put the figure at $2 billion.

According to family legend, the collection was founded by Eliya Belyutin’s grandfather, an artist at the Moscow office of the imperial theaters, Ivan Yegorovich Grinev, who in the 1870s, using money received from his work, traveled to Western Europe to auctions, where he made acquisitions. Later they wanted to turn the collection into a private museum, but after the October Revolution the works were hidden. In the 1990s, Eli Belyutin and Nina Moleva again thought about creating a private museum and carried out an initial assessment of the works. In 1993, an unsuccessful attempt was made to steal the collection.

On April 1, 2013, Nina Moleva bequeathed the collection as a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin. When drawing up the will, she was explained that she could only name an individual or an institution as an heir. Thus, in the will, according to her, the name of the President of the Russian Federation appeared as the “legal representative of the country.”

Until today, the collection was kept in Nina Moleva’s apartment.