"Organ grinder" Pirosmani, returned to Georgia

[Dogel]

Cloth Pirosmani "organ grinder" returned to Georgia
Law enforcement agencies of Georgia have returned to a country now famous primitivist painter Niko Pirosmani. Painting "organ grinder" that a few years ago, illegally taken out of Georgia smuggled was offered for sale in a foreign country on the "black market". It was reported earlier that the circumstances of the sale in the UK masterpiece Pirosmani "Shepherd", information about what appeared November 28, 2011, to investigate in Georgia. The picture went to auction in London for 600,000 pounds (about $ 1.5 million - approx. "Caucasian Knot"). The picture came through one of the prisoners, who provided information on the removal of pictures from the country illegally, said prosecutor Shota Tkeshelashvili, "Georgia Online". Members of the investigative group prosecutors said that "in the interests of the investigation," they
forced to refrain from disclosing details of the operation, ITAR-TASS reported.
"Work escaped the fate of being assigned to a foreign country and now it will be posted at the National Museum of Georgia," - said a source at the Ministry of Justice, "News-Georgia." "Organ grinder" is the fourth work Pirosmani that in 2011, police returned to Georgia. "The organ grinder," "hen and chickens," "Wounded Soldier", "Kakheti wine" (which smugglers tried to bring to Russia via Azerbaijan) - all these
paintings, returned to the country, transferred to the National Museum of Georgia.
It should be noted that in recent months at foreign auctions were sold two paintings by Pirosmani that had been illegally exported from the country. Their price is higher than 500 000 pounds. The "Caucasian Knot", the Tbilisi City Court has sentenced October 19 five residents of Georgia, who tried to take overseas job Niko Pirosmani "Georgian wine" ("Kakheti wine"). The investigation revealed that the convicts tried to take
masterpiece to Russia via Azerbaijan and sell it for half a million dollars.
Pirosmani paintings and earlier at the center of a scandal when in 2009 the protection of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili took the job of the museum "Giorgoba (St. George's Day) in Bolnisi" and transported to the office of head of Georgia. In May 2011, Georgia prosecutors during investigations of criminal investigations have found a previously unknown painting Pirosmani "The wounded soldiers."