State Hermitage Museum Theatens to Halt Outgoing Loans

In the aftermath of last month's fiasco at the Swiss-German border, The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg has threatened a moratorium on future loans to Europe and the UK.

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Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the Hermitage, warns there is a real possibility that no Russian museum will lend works to UK or other European venues unless it receives "concrete guarantees" from host governments that its collections will not be impounded, as a result of a long-running dispute between a Swiss businessman and the Russian government.

At a conference organised by the Art Loss Register in London before the Swiss incident, curators raised concerns about artworks being held hostage with David Lammy, the culture minister. The issue was also aired in September at a meeting of the Club of Three, a private group set up to foster good relations between America, Europe and Russia. But although the British government operates an indemnity scheme for public galleries, it has said it is unable to offer similar guarantees to private institutions.

The National Gallery is calling on the UK to adopt anti-seizure legislation. In the meantime, however, Prof Piotrovsky says the Hermitage has no choice but to reconsider all its agreements for exhibitions with countries "which cannot give proper guarantees to art and where governments do not understand that art is not a commercial commodity".

Unfortunately for Mr. Piotrovsky and the Hermitage, outgoing loans are a reciprocal process. Cultural institutions rely heavily on one another to lend works to special exhibitions and often their willingness or refusal to lend increases the likelihood that the solicited institution will do the same when the situation is reversed. If the Hermitage or any other Russian cultural institution intends to have a meaningful exhibition any time soon they might want to rethink their position.