Paintings that bring death, disease and fire to their owners

The artist asked his contemporaries a riddle to which there was no answer: who is this woman, in whom everyone saw elusively familiar features. The attractive gaze of a mysterious stranger over time began to seem ominous. They say that Pavel Tretyakov refused to buy a painting for the gallery, after which it ended up in a private collection. Soon the owner was unexpectedly left by his wife, and he hastened to resell the portrait. The second owner lost his house and almost all his property in the fire, but the painting remained unharmed. The third owner of “Unknown” went bankrupt. Even after leaving the country, the canvas, according to rumors, continued to bring misfortune until it returned to Russia in 1925, finally ending up in the Tretyakov Gallery.

Diego Velazquez. “Venus with a mirror”

For two and a half centuries, this beautiful picture brought all sorts of troubles to its owners, until it itself was cut with a knife. The first owner was completely ruined: he was a merchant, and the ships equipped by him unexpectedly sank, and what survived was taken by pirates. So the remnants of the property were forcedly sold out, including “Venus”. The second lost his entire fortune in an instant: lightning struck his port warehouses, causing a fire. The moneylender who bought the painting at the auction was robbed and stabbed to death a few days later. In 1906, Velazquez’s work ended up in the London Gallery. She was put on display, and then Venus herself was attacked. The picture was attacked with a knife by Mary Richardson, who decided that the image degrades the dignity of women. The restorers managed to restore “Venus with a Mirror”, but she herself seemed to have lost her fatal power after injury.

In Soviet times, a reproduction of this picture was placed in school textbooks, so almost everyone knew it. But the teachers did not tell about the fate of the heroine. Young Giovannina was the niece of the Italian composer Paccini. After the death of her uncle, there were no relatives left, and the Russian Countess Yulia Samoilova took her to her. The girl fell into an atmosphere of love and luxury, received a good education and even became a model for the wonderful artist Karl Pavlovich Bryullov, who captured her prancing on a horse. By a tragic coincidence, it was the horse that caused the imminent death of Giovannina Paccini: falling out of the saddle during a walk, she was trampled by a rushing horse. The portrait was enveloped in ill fame: collectors were careful not to take it into their homes, especially if daughters were growing up in the family.

Giovanni Bragolin. “Crying boy”

When the painting, painted in the 50s of the last century, was presented to the public, many were amazed at its realism. There was talk that this was no accident: the artist, according to rumors, frightened his own son, lighting matches in his face, which the child was afraid of. The image became popular: reproductions were hung in many houses. And so, in the mid-80s, suddenly a whole wave of fires broke out in the houses where they were located. Perhaps no one would have paid attention to the coincidence, if not for one detail: the picture remained untouched by the fire and lay unharmed in the middle of the conflagration. An investigation by the British newspaper The Sun in 1985 confirmed that the owners of the burned-out apartments did, at different times, place copies of The Crying Boy in the interior. A whole action “Burn the Boy” was announced: the volunteers bought up all the reproductions that they could find and burned them demonstratively in a large vacant lot. The original, however, has survived and is in the private collection of the anonymous owner.

Claude Monet. “Water lilies”

Another painting, with which dozens of fires in houses and museums are associated, belongs to the brush of the famous French impressionist. He wrote many lilies, but only this version was surrounded by ominous rumors. They say that Monet himself became the first victim: immediately after the completion of the painting, his workshop completely burned out. Most of the paintings were lost, but the Water Lilies remained intact. The frustrated artist sold them in a cabaret in Montmartre, which … burned down in a month! The intact canvas was bought by the Parisian collector Otto Schmitz, and a year later a fire began in his office, engulfing the entire house. However, the wall on which the “Lilies” hung survived. The painting was resold several times until a sensational fire broke out at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1958. An employee of the museum died in the fire, and this victim seemed to interrupt the chain of misfortunes. The masterpiece remained in the museum’s collection, but the fires stopped.

One of the most expensive and memorable paintings of all, created by artists, also has a difficult disposition. In any case, there are legends that the canvas takes revenge on everyone who happens to “offend” him. Once an employee of the museum where the painting was kept accidentally dropped it. From that day on, he had terrible migraines. The headaches were so severe that they led to suicide. Another employee did not hold the Scream in his hands while changing the exposure. A few days later, he had a terrible accident and suffered many fractures. And the visitor, who furtively touched the canvas, allegedly burned to death. What follows is a whole series of stories about illnesses, quarrels with loved ones and depressions of those who in any way came into contact with this work of the artist. He himself seemed to be cursed: in early childhood he lost his mother, then his sister, at the age of 14 his brother. Another sister fell ill with schizophrenia, and he himself suffered such severe nervous breakdowns that he had to resort to electroshock treatment.

Pieter Bruegel Sr. “Adoration of the Magi”

As often happened, the artist involved his relative as a model for this painting. It is known that the cousin, with whom Bruegel wrote the Virgin Mary, suffered from infertility. This is where the bad fame came from: they say that none of the collectors whose house the canvas got into was able to acquire offspring. Dreaming of children, the owners were in a hurry to get rid of the “Adoration of the Magi”, which thus passed from hand to hand four times. The vicious chain stopped in 1637, when the painting was acquired by the architect Jacob van Kampen, since he already had children, and three at once.

Leonardo da Vinci. Mona Lisa

Gioconda’s mysterious smile has attracted the attention of a huge number of people for centuries. Many people note that there is some kind of magic in it. And those who persistently try to unravel the secret fall under a strange influence. The artist himself was the first to experience this. People from the inner circle of Leonardo da Vinci recalled that he was as if obsessed with the painting, could not tear himself away from work. There was no end to attempts to correct, redraw, change details. Mona Lisa took away his strength, plunged him into depression. Three centuries later, Stendhal spoke about the mysterious power of the canvas. The writer admired the picture for a long time, unable to take his eyes off the shaky smile. At some point, consciousness clouded, and he fainted. Employees of the Louvre confirm that fainting in front of this portrait is far from uncommon.

Richard King. “Love Letters” – replica

The girl in this picture looks like a real person. Behind the pretty face is the sad story of four-year-old Samantha Houston. She was remarkably similar to a portrait painted before her birth. One day, Samantha stumbled and fell down the stairs, crashing to her death. Since then, it is believed that the spirit of the deceased child has entered the picture. In any case, the guests of the hotel in the Texas town of Austin notice that the expression of the face depicted on the canvas is mysteriously changing. And guests of the city who come with children are not at all wary of staying at this hotel.

Vladimir Borovikovsky. “Portrait of Maria Lopukhina”

Even in the century before last, it was believed that a portrait of young Maria Lopukhina could bring death to unmarried girls. The fact is that the girl died of consumption a few years after the painting was created. After her departure, a legend arose that that part of Mary’s soul, which is captured in paints, is jealous of the living and takes away their youth, beauty and vitality. There was talk that even the management of the Tretyakov Gallery doubted whether it was worth placing the acquired masterpiece in an open exhibition. Whether this is actually so is unknown, but the picture is absolutely accessible to visitors.

Svetlana Taurus. “Rain Woman”

The portrait of a lady in an unusual black hat was painted in just five hours. Later, the artist admitted that all this time she had a strange feeling. It seemed as if someone was driving her hand, and the image was born by itself. Soon the work was bought, but then returned to the author. And this happened several times in a row. The owners complained of sudden onset of sadness, fears, insomnia and a persistent feeling that someone was watching them.

Bill Stoneham. “Hands resist him”

A boy and a girl with empty eye sockets stand at a glass door, against which someone’s palms rest from the inside. The gloomy canvas was painted in 1972 based on an old childhood photograph of the artist himself and his sister. Stoneham showed the work to the owner and art critic of the Los Angeles Times, and he soon passed away. The painting ended up in the private collection of actor John Marley. Several years passed and the owner died. None of the heirs wanted to take the work of art for themselves, it was simply thrown into a landfill. The family that found her hung the picture in the house, and on the very first night, the four-year-old daughter ran to her parents’ bedroom, shouting that the children were fighting on it. Then she began to tell that the boy and the girl were outside the door. They say that the father of the family even installed a video camera with a motion sensor, and it worked several times during the night. The picture was put up for an online auction, where it caused extraordinary excitement: letters were poured with complaints of headaches, a sharp deterioration in health and even heart attacks. It was bought for a private gallery, but the surrounding fears and demands to burn it did not stop even after that.

Edwin Henry Landseer. “Man proposes, God disposes”

In the middle of the 1845th century, Europe was shocked by the history of the expedition of John Franklin. The explorer, who had successfully visited the Arctic three times, organized another risky journey in XNUMX. But the fourth attempt failed: the expedition went missing. The tragic fate of travelers has become the basis of films, books, documentary essays. One of the versions of the death of the researchers was depicted in his painting by a British artist. The work ended up in the gallery of London’s Royal Holloway College, and after a while suicide occurred. In a farewell note, the deceased student wrote: “The polar bears made me do it.”