Pirosmani Grave Still Not Found
10 April, 2014
The Society for Pirosmani Heritage Protection has been carrying out the project “Quest for Pirosmani Grave and its Expertise” for one year already. The project aims to find the lost grave of the great Georgian artist Niko Pirosmani and faces a predicament in obtaining permission for the excavations works. The project is based on the possibility that Niko Pirosmani is buried in the Tbilisi Petre-Pavle cemetery. Another possibility was researched by Georgian public figure and poet Irakli Abashidze. The excavations and exhumation of the grave were carried out on the Kukia cemetery in Tbilisi. But this lead did not have any result because it was the grave of a woman. The project “Quest for Pirosmani Grave and its Expertise” needs additional support to be continued.Ketevan Charkhalashvili, Head of the Society for Pirosmani Heritage Protection: “The project is 100 percent ready and all society members have expressed their readiness to begin the project. We have financial support and we just need permission to dig the ground. I have to say that society has the right to carry out exhumations of graves on the territory of Tbilisi City Hall, which is the owner of the territory. I have to say that we don’t see logic when we have the right to carry out exhumation works; why can’t we just begin the project that only needs the permission to carry out these excavations.”
The territory was scanned with the geo-radar of L. Samkharauli National Forensics Bureau. The results showed “anomalies” in the territory that look like a grave.
The Society for Pirosmani Heritage Protection has gathered a group of independent experts who will observe the project and will have access to all the information during the project such as tests results carried out by anthropologists and archaeologists, and other organizations
The main problem of the issue is that the importance of the project seems not to be very essential. State organizations show indifference towards the subject.
Ketevan Charkhalashvili: “Our society applied to the National Intellectual Property Center Sakpatenti to prove that the idea of the project belongs to members of the Society for Pirosmani Heritage Protection. The methods of searching and testing body remains should be protected and proved, and if other organizations will have the intention to carry out excavations on the territory our society will have the right to protect the project’s intellectual property and we will have the right to apply to court or demand to have the right to observe the project. The fact that we applied to Sakpatenti doesn’t only have a protective meaning. For us, the most important thing is to carry out the project and find the grave of Pirosmani. And we don’t have the intention to demand that only our society can work on this. We want to apply to Tbilisi City Hall and other state organizations to carry out this project under strict supervision of the Society for Pirosmani Heritage Protection and an experts’ group which is staffed with art historians, writers, painters, journalists, archaeologists and other professionals in the field.”
The Pirosmani’s “Hunting in India” is one of his largest and most extraordinary paintings. It depicts two tigers, a bear and a wild boar in a tropical wood. It has not been restored since the 1930s, when it was damaged and in poor condition. Because of its size, restoration is tough. However, now Nana Managadze and Evelina Karseli are restoring the painting. Georgian Journal talked with Managadze, who believes there are other Pirosmani paintings that need restoration.