[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/924949774.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tA photograph by acclaimed Ukrainian artist Boris Mikhailov has been stolen from the Lithuanian National Museum of Art in what officials believe was a targeted theft.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe work, part of Mikhailov\u2019s 1993 series\u00a0At Dusk<\/em>, disappeared from the Radvila Palace Museum of Art in Vilnius on June 28 while on view in the exhibition\u00a0Ukrainian Dreamers: Kharkiv School of Photography<\/em>, according to museum officials. Police are investigating after the incident was captured on security cameras.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAccording to reporting in Ocula<\/em>, museum staff discovered the photograph missing from a second-floor gallery shortly after 1:30 p.m., but the suspected thief had already left the building.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe believe the perpetrator likely knew in advance that Boris Mikhailov is the most prominent artist featured in the exhibition and that his works are among its most valuable,\u201d museum director general Ar\u016bnas Gel\u016bnas told\u00a0Ocula<\/em>. He said officials suspect the work may have been stolen either for a private collection or for sale on the black market.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tLithuanian police have valued the photograph at about \u20ac7,000 (roughly $8,200). Under Lithuanian law, the theft carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe theft comes after a string of high-profile\u00a0museum robberies across Europe\u00a0over the past year, prompting renewed scrutiny of museum security. In October,\u00a0thieves used a cherry picker and an angle grinder to steal nine pieces of jewelry worth an estimated $102 million from the Louver\u2019s Apollo Gallery in a raid that lasted less than eight minutes. Other recent thefts have targeted the Natural History Museum in Paris, the\u00a0Drents Museum in the Netherlands\u00a0and the\u00a0House of Enlightenment, Denis Diderot, in Langres, France.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe stolen photograph is one of 111 hand-tinted panoramic images Mikhailov made in his hometown of Kharkiv following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The series documents a city grappling with economic hardship through scenes of food lines, abandoned buildings, and crumbling infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tGel\u016bnas said it was the first theft reported at the museum in more than two decades. The last occurred more than 20 years ago, when another small-scale artwork disappeared and was never recovered.<\/p>\n \n\tThe incident has prompted the museum to review how it protects smaller works on display.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhile it is not feasible to install individual alarm systems for every object, it is clear that reinforcing the physical security of vulnerable works is an important step,\u201d Gel\u016bnas said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tRepresented by Marian Goodman Gallery, Mikhailov is widely regarded as one of Eastern Europe\u2019s most influential photographers. His work, which blends documentary photography with conceptual practice, has earned honors including the Hasselblad Award and the Deutsche B\u00f6rse Photography Foundation Prize.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/boris-mikhailov-photograph-stolen-lithuanian-national-museum-1234791089\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/924949774.jpg?w=1024″] A photograph by acclaimed Ukrainian artist Boris Mikhailov has been stolen from the Lithuanian National Museum of Art in what officials believe was a targeted theft. The work, part of Mikhailov\u2019s 1993 series\u00a0At Dusk, disappeared from the Radvila Palace Museum of Art in Vilnius on June 28 while on view in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2023615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2023615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2023615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2023615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2023615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}