PAJA JOVANOVIĆ PAINTING PURCHASED AT LONDON AUCTION FOR £170,000

BELGRADE, APRIL 29 /SRNA/ – Serbia has purchased the painting "Guard at Rest" by Paja Jovanović at an auction in London for £170,000, the Serbia's Ministry of Culture announced.

The Government authorised the Serbian Embassy in the United Kingdom to acquire this valuable artwork at a public auction Sotheby, which will be kept at the Historical Museum of Serbia.

With the acquisition of this painting, the Historical Museum of Serbia has been enriched with a representative work from Paja Jovanović's orientalist opus.

The artwork is an oil on canvas measuring 44.5 by 53.5 centimeters, further enhancing Serbia's cultural heritage.

Serbia's Minister of Culture Nikola Selaković stated that the purchase of this valuable painting represents a continuation of a consistent and responsible cultural policy aimed at protecting, preserving, and repatriating Serb cultural heritage.

He recalled that in the previous period, numerous valuable cultural items were returned to Serbia, such as a silver candlestick from the court of the Obrenović dynasty, a framed photograph of Queen Natalija, and two Serbian manuscript books, "Serbian Octoechos" and "The Life of Varlaam and Joasaph".

In addition, letters exchanged between Mileva Marić Einstein and Albert Einstein, King Milan's walking stick with binoculars in the handle, a pitcher from a princely service, and Uroš Predić's painting "Portrait of a Girl with a Book in an Armchair" have also been returned to the country.

Pavle "Paja" Jovanović /1859–1957/ was the most prominent Serbian representative of academic realism and one of the leading painters of European and Serbian art at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.

The painting "Guard at Rest" belongs to his famous orientalist cycle, which brought him international fame.

Like other works of this theme, "Guard at Rest" represents an important document of how the Balkans, likewise the territories that remained under Ottoman rule, were perceived as a distinct part of Europe, where, alongside conflicts and differences, there are shared characteristics, cultural particularities, and values.

Given that a large portion of Paja Jovanović's orientalist works are held in private collections around the world, the Ministry of Culture has enabled the Historical Museum of Serbia, as a national institution for heritage protection, to further complete its collection through this purchase.