This item is so wildly speculative that I could never put it in the Mainstream Media. But I couldn’t help noticing that three visitors to my blog today, all from Spain, got to CultureGrrl by searching on Google about the Hermitage thefts.
One of them, from Barcelona, typed in: “POOL IN A HAREM STEAL”; another, from Girona: “stolen pool in a harem”; the third, from Valladolid: “Zavadskaya+hermitage.”
Larisa Zavadskaya, as CultureGrrl readers know, is the name of the deceased curator who was in charge of the Department of Russian Culture, the source of the 221 objects that were recently stolen from the State Hermitage Museum, Russia.
“Pool in a Harem”, as you also know, is the painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme that in 2001 was cut from its frame at the Hermitage and not recovered.
I’m no detective, but should some Russian investigators be planning a summer vacation in Spain?