Harem scarum at the Hermitage
I haven’t been able to discover what was really going on when Jean-Léon Gérôme’s fleshy 1876 charmer “Pool in a Harem” was recovered last month, nor where it’s been since it was cut from its frame and whisked out of the Hermitage in St Petersburg six years ago. The museum was hosting an international UNESCO World Heritage conference and a Russian government official simply handed over “Piscine du Harem”, or what was left of it.
Apparently a man called a Communist Party office in Moscow saying he wanted to offer it as a gift to party boss Gennady Zyuganov. It had been knifed up pretty good, the perverts.
At any rate, somebody really ought to tell the FBI because they’ve still got it listed as missing.
The Hermitage was probably in strict no-questions-asked mode. It’s been sliced up a fair bit too recently. See the rest.
