These appointments inevitably placed Grabar near the top of the Soviet machine of confiscating church and, to a lesser extent, privately held art treasures. Benois, who left the country, scorned Grabar for "ripping Princess Mescherskaya of her Botticelli." Grabar accepted the fact of Bolshevik expropriation and concentrated on preservation of the treasures and setting up local museums to display them in public. His and Roman Klein's proposal to convert the whole Moscow Kremlin into a public museum failed, and the Kremlin was quickly taken over by the sprawling Red government. Among the masterpieces found during these campaigns was "The Madonna of Tagil" ("Madonna del Popolo") taken from the Demidov house and attributed by Grabar to Raphael. Most, however, ended up at overseas auctions. Less formal attempts of individual artists to raise money in the United States failed: the 1924 show in New York City attracted 17 thousand visitors but raised only $30,000 and Grabar admitted "We do not know what to do".