IZO

The International Fine Arts Fair in Moscow is to be resurrected (Lenta, in Russian).

Delegation of British antique dealers visits Russia, finds lack of taste (ATG).

Legal and crime

Peter the Great pendant stolen from Hermitage recovered in Seattle; it got there via eBay (Seattle Times).

Milan gallerist Giovanni Schubert murdered and dismembered; curator arrested (Corriere della Serra, in Italian).

Minor work by Konstantin Korovin stolen at gunpoint from restorer in Moscow (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

Sergei Butorin, mobster suspected of 30 murders, extradited from Spain to Russia (Kursor, in Russian).

Reports on the 28th Antiques' Salon

The crisis in the antiques market has been overcome (RIAN, in Russian). One of the objects for sale is a painting by Venetsianov [incredibly rare] (TV tsentr, in Russian). Twentieth-century items are in fashion (MK, in Russian).

The 28th Russian Antiques Salon opens on 27 February (Russia ic).

Prominent Moscow antiques dealer Alexander Khochinsky, owner of the Bogema salon on Novy Arbat, faces multiple claims that his shop took goods on commission but never paid the owners (V krizis.ru, in Russian).

Alexander Yakovlevich Khochinsky came to the attention of [the publication V krizis.ru] in the autumn of last year in connection with the disappearance of Karl Bryullov's painting Turkish Girl. In 2006 this canvas was brought into the Bogema salon by 73-year-old Nikolai Semenov, director of the Romance Theatre on Vosstanie Square in Moscow. According to him, a deal was struck for $500,000 and Alexander Khochinsky requested three days to collect the money. But Nikolai Semenov received neither the money nor the picture, neither in three days nor a year later, and all his appeals to Khochinsky were to no avail.

Antique dealer Alexander Khochinsky claims he has been swindled out of a $869,000 collection of letters intended as a gift to PM Putin (NYT) (thanks, MK):

“Galleries don’t survive on collectors,” he said. “The sweetest scheme is when you have businessmen who need items for gifts. Not for collections. But for gifts. The antiquarian should know what to give. He should understand.”

Report on the autumn Antiques Salon (Tatyana Markina/Kommersant, in Russian).

Part I of a portrait of Ilya Ilich Traber, nickname The Antique Dealer (Антиквар) (Nasha Versiya Na Neve, in Russian). Older, more explicit material here (Leningradskaya Pravda). Traber's career path, roughly, has been: sailor > barman > antique dealer > effective controller of the ports in Leningrad > resident of Spain. It has been suggested, even, that Traber it was who arranged the appointment that enabled Vladimir Putin to move from St Petersburg to Moscow. But he's scarcely heard of in the West. When I type "Ilya Traber" (in inverted commas) into Google search, I get only one result (premier.gov.ru). Speaking as a person who began trading antiques as a schoolboy, it's nice to see that someone in the business has done so well.

The Volkhonka Art Centre, a 2000 m2 high-end antiques' centre, opened last week underneath the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (RT) (thanks, MK and AS).