Russian Museum launches new souvenir range dedicated to stolen painting

The Russian State Museum has launched a new line of merchandise dedicated to an Impressionist masterpiece stolen from one of the country’s leading museums earlier this year.

The art world was left stunned after a 31-year-old man lifted Arkhip Kuindzh’s famous Ai-Petri. Crimea straight from the wall and walked out unchallenged at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow in late January. Tens of visitors ignored the audacious theft, which was also caught on camera, believing that the man was a museum employee.

The painting was recovered a day later by police.

The artwork’s reappearance sharpened the minds of the museum’s marketing department who decided to embrace the painting’s rise to fame with a new, celebratory series of merchandise. Anyone who wants to take off with their own copy of Kuindzh’s masterpiece can now decide between a tote bag, t-shirt, apron, and rain poncho.

For everyone else, the work will soon appear again on the walls of the Russian Museum in St Petersburg.