Art News

Former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s gifts up for sale at Artmark auction house

BUCHAREST (AP).- What did they give the dictator who had everything? An African leopardskin or a silver dove — a novel offering from the former Shah of Iran — are just two examples of gifts received by Nicolae Ceausescu that will be auctioned off Thursday, on what would have been the late Romanian leader’s 94th birthday. The auction which is billed “the Golden Age” is a reference to the final years of Ceausescu’s rule, when Communist Party officials painted a rosy picture of life in Romania, while, in reality, people struggled with food shortages, power outages and the dreaded Securitate secret police which kept tabs on the population of 23 million with an army of 760,000 informers. Ceausescu, known as “the