Brulloa’s painting, seized from a collector as a crime weapon, will be exhibited in the Russian Museum

The sensation of the exhibition for the artist’s 225th anniversary will be a work with a criminal past – “Christ in the Tomb”

Karl Bryullov’s painting “Christ in the Tomb,” which has been the subject of litigation for many years, will be exhibited for the first time at the Russian Museum. This sensational statement was made by the director of the State Russian Museum, Alla Manilova, during the presentation of exhibition plans at the Ministry of Culture. 20 years ago, German collector Alexander Pevzner purchased the painting for €100,000 from the Russian Orthodox parish of the Resurrection in Brussels and brought it to St. Petersburg to have it restored. However, questions arose regarding the preparation of the import declaration. As a result, the painting was confiscated as a “crime weapon”, was examined at the Russian Museum, and then included in the museum collection. The MK correspondent recalled the details of the dark case.

The trials for “Christ in the Tomb” lasted two decades and the decisions of different authorities contradicted each other. That is why the painting has been in the storage rooms of the Russian Museum for so long, where it was examined during the proceedings. To understand the whole “salt” of the situation, let us remember how the case around “Christ in the tomb” developed.

So, in 2003, the German collector Alexander Pevzner quite legally bought for a decent amount (€100 thousand) from the Russian Orthodox parish of the Resurrection in Brussels a painting, the authorship of which was in question at that time. There is no signature on the painting, but there was no doubt that it was the work of a Russian artist. He decides that doing the examination and restoration in Russia will be more reliable and cheaper. Some sources report that Pevzner wanted to offer to buy the work to the Russian Museum. There is no doubt that this is the work of a Russian artist. At the border, he applies for a temporary import permit, but then it turns out that there is something wrong with the declaration and the work was confiscated right at the border. After which the case was dealt with for a long time and tediously in different courts, which either sided with the collector or made decisions that were disappointing for him.

Thus, in 2014, the Leningrad Regional Court overturned the previous court decision to confiscate the painting as material evidence and decided to return it to its owner. But in 2016, the Prosecutor General’s Office appealed this decision and decided to confiscate the work as “an instrument of a crime.”

“Having agreed with the employees of the Svetogorsk customs post of the Vyborg customs about the transportation of the painting without proper registration and control, he received a false copy of the customs declaration and freely imported into the territory of Russia a work worth more than 9.4 million rubles,” the Prosecutor General’s Office reported during one of the proceedings . In 2016, the Supreme Court decided that Pevzner “involved customs officials” in the crime he committed for a monetary reward, therefore “the painting should be confiscated from him as an instrument of the crime.”

After this, the Russian Museum, where the material evidence was being examined, included the canvas in the country’s Museum Fund. However, the matter did not end there. In 2017, another court overturned the confiscation. Two years later, the matter came to an apotheosis – the next court generally doubted the legality of the acquisition of the painting by Pevzner, citing the fact that the Belyakovs, Mr. Pevzner’s father-in-law and mother-in-law, were the owners. Although they did not claim ownership of the painting at all. However, in the end, the court excluded the clause on the return of the canvas to the collector, leaving the cancellation of confiscation in force. But at that time the canvas was already included in the museum collection of the Russian Federation. The German collector tried to return the work later, but failed. Its status is still in question, despite the pile of folders and the decision to include it in the museum collection.

However, Alla Manilova decided that the time had come to reveal “Christ in the tomb.” The painting is going to be exhibited at the Karl Bryullov retrospective at the Mikhailovsky Palace, where another 300 works by the artist will be shown. But it will probably become a sensation.