Evening in Cairo

In 2015, the Sotheby's Russian Sale featured one of Aivazovsky’s non-marine paintings. The estimate of "Evening in Cairo" ranged GBP 1.5-2 million, the auction was scheduled for June 2. However, the National Central Bureau of Interpol in Russia sent Britain a request with a demand to remove the picture from the auction because in 1997 it had been stolen from a private collection in Moscow. The fate of the painting before the theft was known: the canvas was in the collection of the Moscow collector Dedov. In the 1940s he sold it to Ivan Nosenko, who held the post of Commissar of the shipbuilding industry. After the death of Nosenko, the picture became the property of his widow. In 1997, the 80-year-old Tamara Nosenko was expecting her granddaughter to get back from shopping. Instead, she had to meet the robbers. The thieves took the works of Aivazovsky, Savrasov, Shishkin. "Evening in Cairo" was the most expensive piece of the collection.

For the first time the painting surfaced in 2013, at Sotheby's. The son of Tamara Nosenko, the diplomat Vladimir Nosenko identified one of the lots of the auction. The painting was removed from the auction until further clarification of the circumstances. The following year the auction house received a response to its request from the Moscow police Department, which reported: "The materials of the criminal case does not include a description, photos, and any other official documents that could give the opportunity to compare the painting, that was stolen in 1997 from the victim Nosenko, with the painting presented at Sotheby's in 2013". That is, to prove that that was the same painting was not possible. Thus, from a legal point of view, the situation was almost hopeless for the former owners.

The situation around the painting was getting hotter. The representatives of Sotheby's claimed that the painting was not listed neither in the list of the stolen art objects, which was compiled by the Ministry of culture of Russia, nor in the International Art Loss Register. However, the auctioneers contacted the "allegedly former owner of the painting" and agreed to pay a certain percentage of the value of the lot. It seemed that Sotheby's also was not sure of the clean origin of the picture, so they realized that such way to solve the problem would be optimal for everyone. However, the authorities another vision of the situation. They demanded to remove the picture from the auction. On the morning of 2 June 2015 just a few minutes before the bidding was about to start, the picture was removed. Its status remains the same until now (June 2016) – "clarifying the circumstances".

Written by Alina Grosheva