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Mikhail Piotrovsky Mikhail Piotrovsky, the director of the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, has responded to claims made by the London art dealer Andre Ruzhnikov that an exhibition held recently at the Winter Palace, Fabergé, Jeweller to the Imperial Court (closed 14 March), allegedly includes a number of “tawdry fakes”. “Any exhibition at the Hermitage Museum is a research project. Technical analysis of the objects on display is part of the Hermitage’s Fabergé rese...

Last modified on Mon 1 Feb 2021 13.01 EST A Russian museum has been asked to close a Fabergé exhibition that contains items loaned from the personal collection of a billionaire, after a prominent expert said it contained more than a dozen fakes. In a letter, the art dealer Andre Ruzhnikov accused the Hermitage Museum’s director, Mikhail Piotrovsky, of “destroying the authority of the museum” by hosting the Fabergé: Jeweller to the Imperial Court show, which runs until 14 Ma...

The alleged Fabergé Wedding Anniversary Egg at the center of the controversy. Courtesy Fabergé Museum, Baden-Baden. A leading London-based art dealer has accused the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg of mounting a Fabergé exhibition featuring more than 20 “tawdry fakes” from the collection of Alexander Ivanov, a Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. The explosive claim was made in an open letter to Hermitage boss Mikhail Piotrovsky by Andre Ruzhnikov, who has been...