Russia's culture minister on Wednesday said new British laws providing legal immunity for some contested artworks would clear the way for a planned exhibit of Russian art in London next month.
Mikhail Shvydkoi, head of the Roskultura state agency, told ITAR-TASS news service that he was satisfied by a draft of the new British law giving the proposed Russian exhibition extra legal protection.
"I received a draft of the law from Britain, which gives a significantly greater chance for a positive resolution of the question and the holding of the exhibition," he was quoted as saying. Moscow had signalled it would cancel the exhibit of 120 paintings from four major Russian museums, complaining that Britain had not guaranteed immunity from court challenges to their ownership.
In response Britain promised to rush through by around January 7 new legislation offering additional guarantees. "The law offers the possibility to enter into serious negotiations on sending the exhibition to London," Shvydkoi was quoted as saying.
The 120 paintings by French and Russian painters, including Matisse's famous "The Dance," are currently on show in Dusseldorf, Germany, and are to remain there until approximately January 6.
From there the exhibition was meant to travel to London for an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts starting January 26. Moscow fears legal challenges in Britain by descendants of tsarist-era Russians who owned some of the art works until they were seized in the Bolshevik Revolution.
The threat to cancel the exhibition added to tensions between London and Moscow, already strained by spying allegations and Russia's refusal to extradite a Russian suspect in the murder in London last year of fugitive Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko.
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