Over the last 10 years, the market for Russian art has grown by a factor of 30 and now accounts for $400 million in sales a year, and the role of Russians on the international art market is ever more noticeable. In turn, art scandals involving Russians are also increasing in number. Russia! magazine has published a Top 10 rating of the biggest scandals on the Russian art market at the beginning of 21st century.

The scandals include fraud and theft, the ownership of wartime spoils, conflicts between the church and society, battles among oligarchs, multi-million dollar corruption and, as always when it comes to Russia a giant penis painted on a bridge opposite an FSB building.

According to experts, the biggest scandal to date is the "Rubens affair," when a Rubens painting stolen during the war, "Tarquin and Lucretia," was obtained by a little-known businessman, Vladimir Logivenko. A criminal case was brought against Logivenko in Germany, and the return of the masterpiece became the subject of political negotiations. Logivenko later cooked up a complicated financial scheme, apparently in a bid to sell the painting for 60 million euros, and convinced a key Russian businessman to transfer money to a special fund. The money mysteriously vanished. The case against Logivenko is currently being heard in court, while the Rubens painting is displayed at the Hermitage, where it is immensely popular thanks to the scandal that engulfed it.

Second place goes to an imbroglio involving Viktor Vekselberg, a key Russian collector, and the Christie’s auction house. Vekselberg’s foundation bought a work by the famous Russian painter Boris Kustodiev for $2.9 million, but it turned out to be a fake. The court case is ongoing.

Other major scandals include a case against the curators of the "Forbidden Art" exhibition – they are charged with inciting ethnic hated, but the curators’ supporters accuse the government of censorship (and are probably right) – as well as a lawsuit against activists from the Voina group, who painted a giant phallus on a bridge opposite an FSB building in St. Petersburg. The government wasn’t too impressed, but the work caught the eye of British graffiti artist Banksy, who donated around $150,000 to support Voina.

The total value of the artworks in our Top 10 is $100 million.

Russian Art Scandals