Seven paintings by Nikolai Roerich were discovered in the storerooms of the Serbian National Museum, they had seemed to be lost, as per TASS.
Museum curator Jelena Dergenc advised that his artwork Saint Guests (1923), especially valued by the artist, is in the foreign paintings collection of the Belgrade National Museum now. Other pictures created in the period from 1910s to 1920s, and two sketch designs of costumes for Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden) were among the discoveries as well.
Nikolai Roerich donated one of his masterpieces to the opening Belgrade museum at the beginning of the 1930s. The gift was accepted by the Serbian King and the museum. However, it is reliably unknown where the rest of his collection came from. Fine art experts suppose that closer to the beginning of the 1940s Roerich could send other paintings together with the donated work to Belgrade for his exhibition. Just a bit later Germany attacked Yugoslavia and the forthcoming war made people forget about the art. Therefore, that collection sunk into oblivion, at least for the next 77 years.
Russkiy Mir Foundation reported earlier about the similar story, when 10 Roerich oils were found in Zagreb art gallery. All the necessary steps are already taken to get the masterpieces back, according to Russian ambassador to Croatia Anvar Azimov.
Russkiy Mir
