That was the explanation an official from Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary Arts gave the Mehr news agency last Tuesday.
The 1950 work, “Mural on Indian Red Ground,” was being returned to the Iranian museum from Japan, where it had been on loan for an exhibition. It was seized May 11 by the customs service, the museum’s Ehsanollah Abbasi told Mehr.
The Culture Ministry announced this Tuesday that the painting had been released and returned to the museum “intact.” The Culture Ministry said nothing about the debt it allegedly owes customs.
Abbasi said earlier he had gone to the customs depot to speak to managers about why it had not been cleared to be returned to his museum. ”They told me that the Culture Ministry had unpaid debt,” he was quoted as saying. The museum comes under the Culture Ministry. It wasn’t known on what imports the museum had failed to pay customs duties.
The painting has an estimated value of $250 million and is considered one of the prize pieces in the Tehran museum, which also features works by Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Alberto Giaco-metti and Henry Moore.
Most of the collection was built up by former Empress Farah Diba, who deployed a team of experts to tour Western auctions and snap up paintings and sculptures for the museum.
Abbasi said, “Unfortunately, the place where the painting is being kept is not suitable for this painting, so there is a possibility of damage.” Paintings need to be stored in environmentally controlled locations.
The museum has never been popular with the authorities, who generally detest modern Western art. The museum was closed for years after the revolution. It is now open, but paintings with nudes are among those that are never on display.