Photograph by Boris Mikhailov Stolen from Lithuanian Museum
A photograph by Ukrainian artist Boris Mikhailov was stolen from the Lithuanian National Museum of Art’s Radvila Palace Museum of Art in Vilnius on 28 June while on view in the exhibition “Ukrainian Dreamers: Kharkiv School of Photography.” Museum staff discovered the work missing shortly after 1:30 p.m., and police are investigating after the incident was captured on security cameras. Director general Arūnas Gelūnas said officials believe it was a targeted theft because Mikhailov is the most prominent and among the most valuable artists in the show; police valued the photograph at about €7,000 (around $8,200), with a maximum penalty of three years in prison under Lithuanian law. The stolen image is from Mikhailov’s 1993 series “At Dusk,” one of 111 hand-tinted panoramic photographs made in Kharkiv after the Soviet Union’s collapse, and the museum said it was its first reported theft in more than two decades.
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This story was covered in Museum Feuds, Funding Frenzies, and Market Heat