In the last year, Romanian businessman Dinu Patriciu has been pawning an impressive personal collection of paintings worth over EUR 2 million to companies he controls, registered in Switzerland and Cyprus, as well as to an individual. The paintings must be among the largest private collections of significant art works by Romanian artists.

The 80 paintings were pawned to DP Holding (Switzerland), Verdesco Limited (Cyprus) and Melanie Anne Chen. Melanie Chen is a member of the Board Directors of DP Holding and CEO of Marine Resources Exploration International BV, all companies owned by Patriciu. Patriciu's reasons are not clear, but by pawning the paintings to companies he owns he could be raising capital and or simply removing the art collection out of Romania, while stashing valuable assets potentially beyond the reach of Romanian jurisdiction.

Six of the paintings, Nicolae Tonitza - Afize, Nicolae Grigorescu-Panselute, Stefan Luchian –Florin de Primavera, Garoafe and Maci, and Ion Ţuculescu - Mare Fermecătoare, cost Dinu Patriciu over EUR 100,000.

Paticiu bought most of the paintings at Artmark auction and over a third cost tens of thousands of dollars, including a painting by Ion Ţuculescu – Dupa Razboaie (Renastere) bought for EUR 72,500.

Also collected by the Romanian businessman were works by Theodor Pallady, Gheorghe Petraşcu, Ștefan Popescu, Camil Ressu and Rudolf Schweitzer.

The collection includes a number of paintings worth less than EUR 10,000,  by artists such as Horia Bernea, Horia Damian, Ştefan Dumitrescu  and Adam Bălţatu.

Dinu Patriciu, the founder of Rompetrol Group, which it sold to KazMunaiGaz,  is the owner of a group of companies which include the Adevarul media group, real estate investment funds, neighborhood retail stores and betting cafes. He was previously listed by Forbes as the richest man in Romania and among the richest men in the Eastern Europe.  Patriciu, who bought Rompetrol from the Romanian state in the 90s and expanded it into a group of companies, is also involved in several lawsuits in Romania.

Ioana Toader, ioana.toader@romania-insider.com