Heading home
Stolen by Nazis, the ‘Ivan the Terrible’ painting is being returned to Ukraine after stay in Ridgefield
RIDGEFIELD — Ivan the Terrible — as painted by Mikhail Panin in 1911, stolen by Nazis in World War II, and hung in two different Ridgefield homes for more than 50 years — is being repatriated to Ukraine, where the painting was displayed in a museum for decades before the war.
“Hopefully, we’ll go to the Ukraine and see it hanging in a museum,” said Gabby Tracy, a longtime Ridgefield woman who moved to Maine in late 2017.
Her husband, David Tracy, had acquired the 71⁄2foot by 81⁄2foot canvas when he bought a house on Mamanasco Road in 1987. When they married in 1991, they moved the painting to Gabby Tracy’s house on Limestone Road.
The painting, “Secret Departure of Ivan the Terrible Before the Oprichina” (Oprichina means “repression”), is being returned to Ukraine after a legal proceeding that the Tracys were happy to cooperate with — Gabby Tracy is Holocaust survivor.
A ceremony attended by the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., and representatives of the State Department and the FBI, was Monday at the Potomack Company auction house in Alexandria, Va., to mark the formal transfer and planned repatriation of the painting.
Gabby and David Tracy took part in the ceremony in Alexandria by a Skype connection on the internet. Jennifer Single, one of David Tracy’s daughters, planned to attend the ceremony. Another daughter, Laurie Thomas, lives in Ridgefield.
“The ambassador spoke to us, and everyone was thanking us, the FBI and so forth,” Gabby Tracy said.
The Potomack Company researched and discovered painting’s remarkable history as it prepared to sell David and Gabby Tracy’s art collection, after the couple had moved to Portland, Maine, in late 2017.
According to a legal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. in December 2018 — with the United States government as the plaintiff and the painting named as the defendant — the auction house had received emails asserting ownership of painting by a museum in Ukraine.
“On November 17, 2017, an employee of the auction house received an email from the Dnepropetrovsk State Art Museum,” the complaint states. “The email stated, in part: Attention! Painting ‘Ivan the Terrible’ was in the collection of the Dnepropetrovsk Art Museum until 1941 and was stolen during the Second World War. The museum documentation confirms this fact. Please stop selling this painting at auction!!! According the international rules of restitution of stolen works of art, the picture should return to Ukraine.
“On December 29, 2017, the auction house received a further email from the Director of the Dnepropetrovsk State Art Museum stating, in part: The painting of Mikhail Panin (18771963) ‘Ivan the Terrible’ dated of 1911 was a diploma work of the artist, was transferred from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1913 to the collection of Ekaterinoslav City Art Museum (today the Dnepropetrovsk Art Museum), was among the 64 exhibits that compiled the first museum exposition in 1914, was exhibited at the permanent exhibition of the museum until 1941 and disappeared during the occupation of the city during the Second World War.
“We have blackwhite photos and documents of the museum’s funds [sic]. Law enforcement obtained records from the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington, D.C., which provided supporting documentation regarding the authenticity of the Defendant Property.”
A story in Alexandria Living Magazine’s Sept. 6 issue described the history and events leading to the painting’s transfer. “Stolen during World War II and thought to be destroyed, the massive 7½’ x 8 ½;’ canvas depicts the 16thcentury Russian czar fleeing the Kremlin on horseback,” Alexandria Living’s Mary Ann Barton wrote.