Curator’s Fears Realised After Disputed Artworks Reappear on Market as Originals

At the end of last month, I reported that two auction houses in Belgium and France were criticised for selling what they described as copies of Russian and Ukrainian modernist paintings linked to the controversy-hit collection at the centre of a 2017 scandal at Ghent’s Museum of Fine Arts (MSK). American Ukrainian art historian Konstantin Akinsha warned at the time that, once sold, the 100 works could re-enter the market and be offered as genuine.

That prediction has now come good. Collective Hudson, a US auction house in New York state, is currently selling several of the works online. And it is marketing them as either authentic or attributed to Russian modernist heavyweights like El Lissitzky. 

The houses involved in the original sales – Stanley’s in Brussels and Drouot in Paris – had marketed the paintings only as works “in the taste of” or from the “Russian school”, not as genuine.

The 100 paintings came from the collection of Russian collectors Igor and Olga Toporovsky, who loaned 24 works attributed to leading Russian and Ukrainian modernists to MSK in 2017. The exhibition sparked international outrage after experts questioned the paintings’ authenticity and provenance. The scandal led to the dismissal of the museum’s director, Catherine de Zegher, while Belgian authorities seized the exhibited works and opened a long-running investigation into the Toporovskys, who are accused of selling forged works and money laundering. Their trial is due to begin this month in Ghent.

None of the 100 works sold by Stanley’s and Drouot in December 2025 and April, respectively, had been exhibited at the MSK, but Akinsha – who curated In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine 1900–1930s at London’s Royal Academy in 2024 – penned an open letter on e-flux calling their sale “deeply troubling”. Published on 29 April and signed by 18 art historians and museum directors, including the former head of Sotheby’s Russian department, Jo Vickery, the letter warned of exactly this scenario.

“The decision to market approximately 100 works from the so-called Toporovsky collection – at an average price of around €300 per piece – on the eve of criminal hearings is not merely questionable; it is, in our view, deeply troubling,” Akinsha wrote.

It is illegal to knowingly sell fakes and forgeries in Belgium and France, but Akinsha argued that Stanley’s and Drouot circumvented this law by labelling the works “in the taste of” or “Russian school”. Still, he added that “this legal minimalism does not mitigate the broader issue”.

Last month, I asked Stanley’s where it had consigned the works from. Virginie de Brouwer, an associate at the house, declined to say, but said: “They were previously part of Mr Toporovsky’s collection, but he is no longer the owner”. She added: “We have all the necessary documentation confirming this legal status.”

De Brouwer did not answer my question about why the 100 works were not seized as part of the investigation into the Toporovskys, nor whether there were any guarantees in place that the paintings would not later be sold as originals.

If there were safeguards, they have clearly failed. Collective Hudson’s auction titled The Best Sale Ever includes a work attributed to El Lissitzky with a high estimate of $150,000, which is the same painting Stanley’s sold in December, however, it was described as “after Ilya Grigorevitch Chashnik”. Back then, it only had a high estimate of €800.

Collective Hudson is also selling a work it claims is by Nikolai Suetin with a high estimate of $50,000. Stanley’s sold the same painting for €2,800, but described it only as “after” Suetin, meaning it was presented as a copy, imitation or reinterpretation by another artist.

In the description for both works on the house’s website, it reads: “Unless explicitly stated, items do not include certificates of authenticity, provenance documentation, or other supporting materials.” Neither painting is being offered with any of the above.

I wrote to Collective Hudson to ask why it is selling these works as originals or attributions, given they were only sold in Europe last month as pastiches, or “in the taste of the Russian school.” I also asked if the house was concerned that the paintings appear to originate from the highly controversial collection of Igor and Olga Toporovsky. 

“As mentioned in our terms and directly under all descriptions all items are considered attributed unless otherwise specified to be originals,” someone identifying as Michael replied. He then wrote: “I am going to have to send this off to the owner who will know how to respond.”

Marc Miller, the house’s owner, then responded. He wrote that when he purchased the paintings from Stanley’s, the house “referred to its write up about a dispute arising from an exhibition between a collector [Toporovksy] and others claiming expert opinions questioning certain works owned by the collector (who also claimed expert status)... which is a rather common event.”  

Miller said that his “follow up questioning resulted in only receiving some documentation that seemed to demonstrate that there had been a lawsuit over ownership rights resulting in a group of paintings left in storage, fees unpaid, foreclosed upon with the result that they were to be sold at auction by Stanley’s”. 

He added that “further inquiry by phone, as regards some specific paintings only resulted in referral back to what had been posted... except that these paintings were not those paintings in question and that no further information or documentation would be forthcoming from the foreclosed prior owners”. 

This, Miller said, “seemed quite understandable under those circumstances.”

De Brouwer from Stanley’s didn’t offer a reply when I asked what she thought about the paintings being resold as originals or attributions.

When Akinsha wrote back to me, he started by referencing the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s quote: “If, in the first chapter you say that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, then, in the second or third chapter, it absolutely must go off.” 

“In this case, the gun went off faster,” Akinsha said. “My colleagues and I warned, in the open letter published on e-flux, about the danger of auctioning questionable artworks, most likely forgeries, without properly marking them as such or listing them on the appropriate databases. Unfortunately, our warning proved prophetic almost immediately. Applying the principle of ‘Chekov’s gun’ to the art market, one could say that if a questionable artwork with alarming provenance is sold merely described as “in the style of…”, there is a very high chance that someone will later attempt to resell it as an original”.