KOTELNICH, December 30 (RAPSI) – A painting by Boris Kustodiev that disappeared from a Kostroma museum in the 1990s recently resurfaced at an auction in Moscow. It was returned to the museum on Monday, the Interior Ministry Department for the Kostroma Region announced.

The loss of Kustodiev’s Portrait of I.A. Ryazanovsky (1914), the museum’s co-founder, was discovered during an inventory.

“The search for the portrait lasted over 10 years. The Kostroma police, in cooperation with the Interior Ministry Department for the Kostroma Region, found the portrait at an auction in Moscow. They confiscated it and, following expert examination, returned it to the Kostroma State Historical, Architectural & Arts Museum Reserve,” the police said in a statement.

According to one version of events, the painting was being auctioned by art dealers. The starting price was set at 150,000 rubles ($4,600), although the real value of the painting is impossible to calculate because it is part of Russia’s cultural and historical heritage.

The museum curators said the portrait would be available for public viewing in the near future.