Selling the family silver

By Nicola Shepherd

THE BOLSHEVIK revolutionaries, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin have been revealed as plunderers of the Russian nation's great art treasures.

They sold off some of the most valuable and sought after works in the world to equip their collective farms. Some of these artefacts, traded to fund an economy crippled by the Communist revolution of 1917, have ended up in the collection of the British royal family.

These revelations have come to light as the result of a book published in Moscow called Selling Russia's Treasures.

The book's editor Nicolas Iljine says that the effort to raise money was, 'ludicrous. They sold all these treasures to buy tractors, but it made almost no difference to the state's budget.'

The speed and greed that forced the sale meant that Faberge eggs, and paintings by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Degas, Boticelli and Rembrandt, to name but a few, were sold off at derisory sums. The works would fetch hundreds, perhaps thousands, of millions of pounds today.

You might argue that the countries that took these works have at least looked after them for posterity. The British Museum has the Codex Sinaiticus, the 4th-century manuscript of the Gospels, which was discovered on Mount Sinai by a shepherd. What would have been the fate of the gospels had the Soviet Union kept them

One particular Faberge egg, made of platinum and gold and encrusted with diamonds, rubies and emeralds contains a medallion with the profiles of the last Tsar Nicholas II and his children. These are the Romanovs executed in 1918 whose bodies were only recently discovered. This artefact is now in the Queen's collection, which she now opens to the public.

Press Association

The Elgin Marbles

Should all works taken from their country of origin be returned The sensitivity of provenance is best illustrated by the Elgin Marbles. Taken from the Acropolis by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century, they have been a source of deep diplomatic irritation to the Greek government ever since.

Only last month, the Greek ambassador refused an invitation to dine with the Queen, because the dinner was being held at the British Museum in the room where the marbles are on display.

There is a world-wide effort to return stolen or plundered works of art to their original owners. Is it now time for the British government to concede to the Greek government over the Elgin Marbles Click here to express your views.