Today the main topic for the Georgian media is a story of an untitled picture which was supposedly drawn by the famous Flemish artist of the 17th century, Anthony van Dyck. The Turkish police confiscated the picture in one of Istanbul's hotels and arrested two citizens of Turkey who tried to sell the work for $14 million. The detained men admitted under interrogation that the picture was taken out of Georgia five years ago.
The intrigue began to grow when the Abashidze family from Tbilisi told the story of the picture. According to Ekaterina Abashidze, she bought the picture 15 years ago at a second-hand shop for $5000. In 2010 she tried to sell it for $37,000, as “the family needed money so much.” These sums are ridiculous, as we are speaking about an artist whose works are recognized masterpieces of the world art. However, art historians who believe that this is van Dyck’s work say that the picture found in Istanbul is not a masterpiece. It was probably a sketch of a picture which the artist planned to draw.
We should take into account the situation in Georgia 15 years ago – unemployment, the mortgage crisis when people were flushed out of their homes because of small debts. Apparently, the initial seller and the Abashidze family couldn’t find a buyer quickly, who would have been ready to pay an adequate sum for the picture.
According to Abashidze, an Azerbaijani businessman Vahid Husseinov called her in 2010. He promised to pay much more than $37,000 after reselling the picture in Turkey. He left a deposit. The businessman didn’t deceive the Abashidze family – he simply couldn’t sell the picture and pay the promised sum.
Vahid Husseinov said that he really tried to sell the picture for its real price for several years. Finally, he left it to his Istanbul friends, as he trusted them. However, they tried to sell the untitled picture for $14 million.
It seems when the information on selling such a significant work reached the Turkish special forces, they held an operation on detaining the sellers and confiscating the picture. According to some information, the police used a straw buyer, who promised to pay the sum after conducting an analysis.
Vahid Husseinov is sure that he and his Turkish colleagues haven’t committed any crimes, and the detained men will be released soon, while the picture will return to its legal owner. Husseinov admits that he couldn’t pay the promised sum to Abashidze earlier, but today he is ready to pay even more. However, Abashidze, who learnt about the $14 million, doesn’t want to sell the picture at all at the moment. I mean, the family wants to find another buyer, accusing Husseinov of breaking the promise on selling the picture.
At the same time, the Azerbaijani businessman has his own arguments, which will be presented in the court – the contract on selling the picture (a document of 2010) doesn’t mention a date for paying the rest of the sum; it says that the sum is to be paid after selling the picture.
The position of the Ministry of Culture of Georgia is interesting. It made a statement which contains political shades. According to Georgian law, it is forbidden to take works of art out of the country. It is impossible to sell them without corresponding permission from the Ministry of Culture, which must confirm that this or that work is not a national treasure. The law was adopted in the 1990s when major collectors, trying to solve their financial problems during the civil war and starvation, sold masterpieces to foreign countries, for example, works by Niko Pirosmani. Georgia lost many of them forever. Not long ago, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili bought The Arsenal Mountain by Pirosmani and donated it to the Tbilisi Art Museum.
Therefore, Vahid Husseinov and Ekaterina Abashidze were interrogated by the financial police to find out whether there was an attempt at contraband and how real the sums mentioned were. The Ministry of Culture and the Department of Preservation of the Cultural Heritage stated that Georgian art historians who were invited to provide an analysis of the picture in 2010 didn’t recognize it as van Dyck’s work. And after that the seller and the buyer received legal permission to take the picture abroad.
The genuineness of the picture is a doubtful issue. The Azerbaijani businessman doesn’t look like a fool who is ready to spend money on trifles. He paid a deposit to Abashidze. The dispute will be over after an analysis by Turkish and European experts, which will take place this month. However, it won’t stop the dispute with the former owners about the picture, only if experts find that the mysterious picture is not a work by van Dyck.
