Art critic Basner is released from house arrest

The Dzerzhinsky district court of St. Petersburg during the preliminary hearings in the case of the famous art critic Elena Basner, who was charged with the participation of a fake picture, released the accused from house arrest, taking a recognizance not to leave her. This was reported by Fontanka.ru with reference to the lawyer, scientist, scientist Larisa Malkov, who petitioned for mitigating the preventive measure.

Basner was charged with part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code (fraud on an especially large scale). The scientist threatens up to 10 years in the colony. On Friday, it has been a year since its detention in the case.

In 2009, the St. Petersburg collector Alexander Vasiliev paid the publisher Leonid Shumakov 250 thousand dollars for the picture of the avant -garde artist Boris Grigoryev "in the restaurant" (1913). In 2011, however, it turned out that this work is in the storerooms of the Russian Museum, and Vasiliev sold a fake. The intermediary, to whom the collector turned to explain, said that Basner awarded the authenticity of the picture.

Vasiliev achieved the police to initiate fraud. The scientist rejected the accusations against him, and Malkov’s lawyer stated that Vasiliev himself forged the picture.

The investigation has stopped, but later it was resumed. In August 2013, Vasiliev visited the reception of the chairman of the Investigative Committee of Alexander Bastrykin who arrived in St. Petersburg. After that, the deputy head (now the head) of the city department of the department, Alexander Klaus, ensured that the case be referred from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the TFR.

Since then, dozens of examinations have been conducted. The final reads: "The presented picture is an unconditionally professional fake."

At the end of January 2014, the Investigative Committee, together with the police, conducted searches at a number of St. Petersburg antiquers. Basner was detained on January 30, when she came to the city from Finland for several days. She spent the next six days in the IVS. On February 4, she was charged with an official charge.

On February 5, 2014, the Oktyabrsky District Court of St. Petersburg sent Basner under house arrest. Later, the duration of this preventive measure was repeatedly extended.

On December 10, Basner completed the familiarization with the case file. After that, it went to the prosecutor’s office, which on January 19, 2015 approved the indictment .

The scientist herself still does not admit guilt.

In September, it was reported that shortly after the charge, Basner was charged with another episode - about the fake of Nikolai Kalmakov’s “Awakening” - and Vasiliev was also undergoing the victims of this episode. The publication, however, noted that the examination of this picture was not performed by Basner.

One way or another, in the final version of the case of an episode with a picture of Kalmakov.

The scientist is the daughter of the composer Benjamin Basner, the author of the song "Where does the Motherland begin." At the end of the Academy of Arts, she worked in the Russian Museum, then in the house of Matyushin - the Museum of the St. Petersburg avant -garde. After retirement, she carried out orders of the most solid auction houses in the world. Recently, before the arrest, I was assessed at the Bukowskis auction house in Finland.

Basner is the author of a number of monographs and reviews. She also owns a patented method for determining picturesque fakes.