MOSCOW, March 15 - RAPSI. On Friday, Moscow's Presnensky District Court approved an amicable agreement, under which Mikhail de Boire's collection of almost 200 icons shall be divided equally among his three heirs, lawyer Ruslan Koblev, who represents the interests of one of the heirs, told RAPSI.

"The collection shall be divided equally among the legitimate heirs: widow Tatiana de Boire, son Mikhail de Boire and daughter Irina Berezhnaya. This draws a line under the court proceedings, which have lasted almost 3.5 years," the lawyer said.

A notary was supposed to issue property-rights certificates to the heirs of the deceased, including his widow Tatiana and three children, six months after de Boire's death. However, de Boire's ex-wife, Lyubov Elizavetina, took the icons from an exhibition at the Tsaritsyno Museum to an unspecified location. In February, Moscow's Presnensky District Court ordered Elizavetina to return the artifacts and to cede ownership rights to de Boire's children and his widow.

Mikhail de Boire's icon collection is one of the largest private Russian icon collections and includes high-quality masterpieces dating back to the 14th -17th centuries, as well as icons of the New Period (18th century, 19th century and early 20th century). According to experts, the entire collection of 192 is worth about 70 million euros (2.8 billion rubles).