The conflict started seven pages of "The Gospel Zaitouna" with illustrations by Toros Roslin, who were torn from the book and abducted during the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915

Zapadnoamerikanskaya Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) has sued the Getty Museum. According to the statement of claim to the Supreme Court of the County of Los Angeles, the Museum of illegally stored seven pages of the so-called. "The Gospel of Zaitouna" in 1256 with illustrations by Armenian miniaturist painter Toros Roslin (T'oros Roslin). They were torn from the book and abducted during the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. AAC requires them to return and compensation of $ 105 million dollars.

In response to the accusation by the representatives of the Getty said that the pages have been acquired legally in 1994, after a thorough provenance "in of a private collector who preferred to hide his name. Since then, the museum has repeatedly published descriptions and reproductions of these fragments of "The Gospel Zaitouna" and exhibited them at the exhibition of Armenian art and culture in New York in 1994. In this case no one has ever raised the issue of ownership of these works. Therefore, representatives of the Getty called the lawsuit baseless Armenian side and demanded its rejection.

The lawsuit alleges the diocese Zapadnoamerikanskoy AAC, stolen page is in the collection of a certain family of Waterton, Mass., and in 1994 they were transferred to Morgan Library in New York for display at an exhibition of Armenian art. The very Gospel of Zeitun now stored at the Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, Matenadaran named St. Mashtots in Yerevan.

material prepared Ekaterina Guseva, AI

Sources: glendalenewspress.com , artdaily.com , artinvestment.ru