Historic Soviet drawings stolen in £1.5m raid
Russia has suffered its second major art theft in as many weeks, with the plundering of hundreds of drawings worth at least £1.5m from the State Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow.
The drawings were the work of the late Yakov Chernikhov, a leading artist and architect of the Soviet era who specialised in "constructivist" socialist design. The thief or thieves emptied hundreds of folders containing drawings, replacing them with worthless "dummy" sketches to delay the moment when the robbery would be discovered. It is estimated that about 1,500 of the 2,000 drawings in the collection were stolen; 274 have been recovered.
The robbery comes a week after the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg revealed that 221 items worth £2.7m had been stolen from its repository over a period of six years. Three people, including the husband and son of one of the museum's late curators, have been arrested in connection with the crime.
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The drawings were the work of the late Yakov Chernikhov, a leading artist and architect of the Soviet era who specialised in "constructivist" socialist design. The thief or thieves emptied hundreds of folders containing drawings, replacing them with worthless "dummy" sketches to delay the moment when the robbery would be discovered. It is estimated that about 1,500 of the 2,000 drawings in the collection were stolen; 274 have been recovered.
The robbery comes a week after the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg revealed that 221 items worth £2.7m had been stolen from its repository over a period of six years. Three people, including the husband and son of one of the museum's late curators, have been arrested in connection with the crime.