The sale was halted after the space agency claimed it owned everything associated with a 1969 experiment that explored whether lunar soil was dangerous to terrestrial life.
Dmitri A. Muratov, whose newspaper was shuttered in response to the Kremlin’s increasingly draconian censorship, will donate the proceeds to Ukrainian refugees.
No longer does museum validation or scholarly attention determine a painting’s value. Now, the collectors’ hunger comes first, and institutions must follow.