The exhibition dedicated to the Morozov collection and its masterpieces exhibited at the Vuitton Foundation in Paris since September 21 closes its doors this Sunday April 3. This unique set, Russian pride, will have to be sent back to Russia. Which might be complicated.
From the beginning of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, voices were raised. Wouldn’t it be possible to keep in retaliation the 200 canvases of masters of the Morozov collection, exhibited at the Vuitton Foundation, since the fall? The answer is no. In 1994, France adopted a law which made works loaned by a foreign power or institution during their stay in France unseizable.
Legally, the collection, which is traveling outside of Russia for the first time, is untouchable. The canvases of the French masters Van Gogh, Gauguin, Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, Monet or that of the Russians Golovin, Goncharova, Melnikov, Repin or Serov should therefore find the Hermitage museum in Saint Petersburg, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts , the Tretyakov Gallery or the Russian National Museum.
The question is rather when. ” If the conditions for them to travel safely are not sufficient, we will wait “, says Jean-Paul Claverie, adviser to the CEO of LVMH Bernard Arnault. Their repatriation, near or far, by road or by air, will be like any transport of works of art: top secret.