13:00, 2 January 2012

Pirosmani's painting "Organ-Grinder" returned to Georgia

Law enforcement bodies of Georgia have returned a painting by Niko Pirosmani, a famous primitivist painter, back to the country. The painting "Organ-Grinder", which had been illegally taken out of Georgia a few years ago, was offered for sale in a foreign country in the "black market".

It was reported earlier that the circumstances of the sale in the UK of Pirosmani's masterpiece "Shepherd", the information about what appeared on November 28, 2011, were investigated in Georgia. The painting was sold at the auction in London for 600,000 pounds.

Prosecutor Shota Tkeshelashvili told the "Georgia Online" that the information about the painting was received from one of the prisoners, who told about how the work had been illegally exported out of the country.

"The painting has escaped the fate of being embezzled in a foreign country; and now it will be exposed at the National Museum of Georgia," a source from the Ministry of Justice told the "News-Georgia."