MOSCOW, December 12. /TASS/. The owner of the Venus and Adonis masterpiece, by the Venetian Renaissance artist Titian, has refused to sell it to Moscow’s renowned Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts despite previous agreements, Deputy Director for scientific work at the museum Viktoria Markova told TASS.
"For the museum and me personally this is a major blow and a huge loss and a tragedy. And not only for the museum. Given that the number of masterpieces that Russia lost during the Soviet era, including Titian’s works, the purchase of this painting would have been crucial for the country’s museum collection," Markova said.
Plagued by troubles, the historic painting was originally believed to be a copy of Titian’s composition. However, in autumn 2005, Viktoria Markova, a specialist in Italian art, found out that this was the original. Collector Vladimir Logvinenko, who owned the masterpiece, had asked her for an assessment. Later, research confirmed that this was the original and even the Prado Museum in Madrid admitted that the painting in its collection was a second version.
The Pushkin Museum, which owns one of Russia's largest collections of world art from ancient times to the present day, had provided its assistance to find professionals in Titian’s technique and recommended sending the painting for restoration to Venice. After two years of restoration, the composition was taken to Switzerland. Last year, the masterpiece was put on display at the Pushkin Museum’s exhibition dubbed: "Titian. Tintoretto. Veronese."
"We can say reliably that if I had not been in the right place at the right time and if we hadn’t provided assistance in studying the painting and its restoration, this masterpiece would not have existed today. It could have ended up in an unknown place, deemed a copy, or could have been damaged by renovation," Markova said.
The decision to show the painting at the exhibition was not an easy one, although this is a true masterpiece, she said. Usually, when a museum takes a painting from a private collection, this looks like a PR campaign, which helps the masterpiece get additional benefits in order to be sold at a higher price at an auction, Markova explained.
"We accepted the painting on condition that it will remain in the museum’s exposition for two years. And shortly after, the owner suggested that we buy it. There were no lengthy talks and no one had persuaded the collector - the initiative came from him," she noted.
"We thought that we had good chances of acquiring it given our verbal agreements," Markova said. However, this spring the owner wrote a letter demanding the urgent return of the painting. The museum convinced him to extend the exhibition until the end of 2018. "During that time, we found a sponsor, who was ready to buy this painting for us. We hoped that the owners would hold talks with us, and we had asked them about that all the time, even in writing, but we did not receive any response to these letters," she said.
Initially, the owner agreed to sell the painting to the Pushkin Museum for $20 mln. But apparently, he changed his mind hoping to sell it at a higher price at an auction after the museum’s exhibition. "I think that’s an erroneous calculation," she said, noting that experts had named "quite moderate prices."
In his last letter, the owner demanded removing the painting from the exhibition by December 17 and returning it the next day.