In the latest development in one of this year’s farthest-reaching art law issues, the Metropolitian Museum of Art announced in August that it will no longer lend its works of art within the Russian Federation so long as the Russian embargo on U.S. loans persists. The Met had planned to loan works by French designer Paul Poiret to the exhibition “Paul Poiret – King of Fashion” at the Kremlin Museum.
This is the first major move by a U.S. museum since the Russian Federation announced in January that it would cease loaning cultural artifacts to the United States so long as a judgment was in force requiring several Russian state libraries to return the archives of the Chabad Lubavitcher Rebbes to that movement’s constituents in New York.
The clock is already ticking on the Russian defendant's next move; the District Court gave them 60 days from July 26 to show cause as to why they should not be held in contempt. Yet it is hard to imagine a new result.
The Met's bold move should be welcomed by American museums. The plaintiffs have shown admirable restraint in addressing the stated cultural concerns, to no avail. The Russian defendants have ignored all efforts at enforcement, and diplomatic efforts behind closed doors have gone nowhere to date. Few museums can boast of the Met's stature and, to the extent there is any leverage back across the Atlantic, this could provide it. Indeed, this may already have borne some fruit, though thus far only in the U.K.
