A Ukrainian was found guilty of brazen theft of paintings in France and sentenced to five years
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The French court found Ukrainian collector, antiquarian and art dealer Vadym Guzhva guilty of stealing the painting “Port la Rochelle” by artist Paul Signac and sentenced him to five years in prison. The verdict mentions Gujva’s involvement in the theft of four other paintings, including a work by Pierre Renoir, as well as an ancient book. In addition to imprisonment, the Ukrainian must pay almost 300,000 euros in compensation, reports artnews. Guzhva himself did not admit his guilt. “You have no evidence of these accusations,” he said in court. A painting by French pointillist Paul Signac worth $1.5 million was stolen in 2018 from the Museum of Fine Arts in the French city of Nancy. Then three men entered the museum, cut the canvas from the frame with a penknife and calmly carried it out, hiding it under a raincoat. Le Port de La Rochelle. Paul Signac. Photo: WikiArt “They were wearing hats, but with their faces open, entered through the main entrance and left through the same door,” said prosecutor Nancy Francois Perrin, shocked by the audacity of the attackers. Within a year, in 2019, the painting was found in Ukraine, in the house of one of the suspects in the murder of Ukrainian jeweler Serhiy Kiselyov. He told about Guzhva’s involvement in stealing Signac’s work. At that time, Guzhva was in an Austrian prison for the theft of Renoir, and later he was extradited to France. And at the end of January of this year, they started judging. Ukraine returned Signac’s painting to France in 2021. Photo: @OmelchenkoVadym / Twitter Four other paintings, the theft of which the French court also found Gouzva guilty – Renoir’s “Portrait of a Blonde”, stolen from an auction house in the city of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a work by Giorgio De Chirico from the Fabreg Museum in Béziers and paintings by Eugène Boudin and Eugène Gallien-Lalou, stolen from the Chateau de Versailles auction house, have not yet been found. Vadim Guzhva is involved in many high-profile art thefts. Photo by law enforcement agencies In Ukraine, Guzhva was also accused of high-profile thefts. In particular, paintings by Aivazovsky worth 300,000 dollars, which were taken out of the Odesa Museum through a window in 2005. A year later, Aivazovsky’s stolen painting “Seascape” was accidentally discovered by law enforcement officers when they stopped a car on the highway. Then Guzhva spent six years in the Odessa pre-trial detention center, and then went abroad. Read also: The court found the ex-director of the Louvre to be involved in the illegal trade in antiquities
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