“With this purchase, Georgia regained the work that was taken out of the country several decades ago. The precious canvas was brought by the Dadianis from Paris in its time and it was being kept in the collection of Andria Dadiani in the Art Palace (Andria Dadiani lived in the building of the current Art Palace in 1903). After the Soviet occupation, Georgian nobles took many things out of the country or sold them abroad for their livelihood. This is how the painting traveled from Tbilisi to Kiev and then to London. The work appeared at Christie's auction in 2005, but then the Georgian side could not buy it. From today, the portrait will be placed in the Art Palace.

The work is special and original. The oil portrait was painted by a 19th-century master, the French artist Charles-Louis Müller (1815-1892). Müller was a famous portrait painter and decorator, nicknamed Müller de Paris. He first studied at the School of Fine Arts in Paris, in the class of Baron Gross, and then moved on with Léon Cogniet. The artist began exhibiting his works in the Salon of French Artists in 1834 and did not betray the tradition until 1892. The decorations performed for the ceiling of the Salon Denon and the Louvre at the Salle des Etats are particularly noteworthy. Müller later worked with architect Hector Lefebvre to create a new Louvre for Napoleon III," the Ministry said in a statement.