Here it seems, did the lion's share of icons exported to the West, are fakes??
Russian icons sold by the Bolsheviks in the West - mostly fakes
25/11/2011
News Arts and Antiques
Moreover, these icons and resold as genuine today as Western experts do not receive information about scams, conducted by the Soviet government. The secrets of these and many other works of art will be revealed in a sensational book, "Sold Art of Russia", which will be released in New York next year. Yuri Pyatnitsky, senior researcher in the Department of the East Hermitage preparing materials for the section of the sale of icons.
According to him, archival documents of the state company "Antiques", which was engaged in selling works of art abroad, has not yet been declassified, but occasionally there are paper, allowing partial reconstruct the course of historical events of 1920-1930's. In 1918 at the Department for Museums and Monuments Protection, which was headed by NI Trotskaya (Sedov), wife of Leon Trotsky, was founded by a special Commission for the Conservation of Ancient Monuments and disclosure of painting. The official task of the commission - finding and maintaining church property, the informal - the seizure and selling them abroad to replenish the coffers of the Soviet government. Experts evaluated the findings before which was a difficult choice: if the price is called the true object of art, it sold to foreigners, if the value of understated - icons destroyed.
In 1929, the "Antiques" organized an exhibition of ancient icons, which was exhibited in Germany, England, Austria and the United States. Its purpose was to prepare the Western market to the flow of antique goods from Russia, then these things are sold as belonging to the emigrants. The items removed at the time, now exhibited in the best museums of the world: for example, a fragment of the altar with the image of the gates of St. John the Evangelist is stored in the Louvre.
For sale by the Government of the icons involved in the so-called "Ofen" - craftsmen and restorers. They are easily converted to an instance of XVIII or XIX century in the XV and even the subject of the XIV century. "Ofen" also participated in expeditions to the Russian province in search of works of applied art. The collected data, two-thirds of the icons, sold to the West, are not the originals.
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