The court acquitted the critic Elena Basner the case of fraud – RBC

Art Elena Basner

Photo: Denis Vyshinsky / TASS

The court in St. Petersburg acquitted art historian Elena Basner, was accused of fraud on a large scale. The Court concluded that there had been a professional error in the examination

Art Elena Basner, which was accused of selling fake paintings impressionist Russian Boris Grigoriev acquitted. This decision, according to Tass, issued on Tuesday, May 17 Dzerzhinsky district court of St. Petersburg

«The Court finds innocence Elena Basner the case of fraud”, -. Quoted by Judge Angelica Morozov, announcing the verdict. As stated in the verdict, the court decided that it was a professional art critic error in the examination.

Earlier, the prosecution asked the court to recognize Basner guilty of fraud on a large scale, and assign it a sentence of 4 years in prison .

Basner was detained in St. Petersburg January 31, 2014, it was accused of carrying out the examination of false paintings Grigoriev “restaurant”, which was a fake and was sold in 2009 for 7.5 million rubles. Investigators believe that Basner, a recognized expert on painting, reliably know that this painting is in the vaults of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

criminal investigation into the sale of fake paintings Grigoriev was instituted in 2012. The collector Andrey Vasilyev acted as a plaintiff, who in 2009 bought the painting. That bought a copy of the work, the collector only learned when he gave the picture to the exhibition in Moscow in two years. It turned out that the painting is a fake, and the script is located in St. Petersburg. forgery fact established examination carried out independently by the specialists of the Russian Museum and the Moscow Expert Grabar Center.

Painting and researcher Russian avant-garde of the early twentieth century specialist Elena Basner has long been a curator of art of the XX century, the State Russian Museum . After the start of the investigation at the museum said that it is not his employee and has nothing to do with him since 2003. TASS reported, citing sources said that Basner is a consultant to the Swedish auction house Bukowskis.