The Property of a Lady is a 1963 short story by Ian Fleming, in which 007 is tasked by M with rooting out a London-based Soviet spymaster and his espionage activities to justify his expulsion from the UK by Government Sanction. Bond plans to identify and trap his prey using a live London auction sale of a lot listed in Sotheby’s catalogue as ‘The terrestrial globe designed in 1917 by Carl Fabergé for a Russian gentleman and now the property of his granddaughter’.
Sanctions are optional tools threatened or employed to deter or punish an incorrigibly rogue adversary. Government sanctions may be executed by diplomatic or economic means, sometimes backed by force of law – or arms if necessary. Non-government sanctions may also be executed by individuals or entities that have a suitable occasion, power, and mind to do so – including those operating in the cultural sphere.
Many cultural entities worldwide imposed sanctions against Russia, almost immediately following its military invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. On 28 February Warner Media cancelled release in Russia of the feature film The Batman, Sony cancelled release of all films in Russia including the new Marvel feature Morbius, as did Disney Pixar of its animation feature film Turning Red. Cultural institutions throughout Europe, currently in temporary possession of cultural works lent by Russia for public exhibition, have been considering using such works to impose sanctions on Russia.
On 1 March 2022 The Moscow Kremlin Museums announced its postponement indefinitely of a major exhibition due to open on 4 March: ‘The Duel – From God’s Judgment to a Noble Crime’. The exhibition relied on objects lent by ten European museums, all of whom said they withdrew their loans because of Russia’s war on Ukraine, including institutions in Austria, France, Spain, and the UK. Kremlin Museums’ website explained that European museums ‘were forced to withdraw … due to the geopolitical situation’. France’s culture ministry gave more explanation over its withdrawal of works: ‘Our presence could have been exploited as a sign of divergence among European [lenders]. There was no question of dissociating ourselves’.
On 16 March 2022 Bonhams followed Sotheby’s and Christie’s cancellation of auction sales of Russian art that all three houses had scheduled for June 2022. Phillips (owned by Russian luxury goods company Mercury Group) holds no sales of Russian art, but nevertheless announced that all buyer’s premiums and vendor’s commissions received from its March art auction were donated to the Ukrainian Red Cross Society, a total of £5.8m. Moreover, all four leading auction houses have instituted more robust ‘know-your-customer’ due diligence checks aimed at the western world’s sanctions against 1,000 or so high-net-worth Russians personally linked to President Putin.
At Paris’s Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation, ‘The Morozov Collection – Icons of Modern Art’ exhibition currently features works collected a century or so ago by Russian brothers Mikhail and Ivan Morozov, including works by Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne, Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso lent by Russian State institutions (Hermitage Museum, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and Tretyakov Gallery). Now nearing the end of the exhibition run, scheduled for 3 April 2022, the Foundation is unlikely to close the show but will doubtless be considering whether to return the works while Russia continues war on Ukraine, and in doing so is bound to bear in mind the 1994 French law that exempts – from seizure by the French State -works lent temporarily by foreign public institutions.
Exemption from seizure has also been a feature of UK law since 2008, chiefly via The Protection of Cultural Objects on Loan (Publication and Provision of Information) Regulations. Though similar to France’s policies, UK’s seizure law notably differs: exemption is not from seizure by the UK State, but from a court-ordered seizure or forfeiture of works, loaned from abroad for temporary exhibitions at UK museums and galleries that have been previously approved by government ministers. To qualify for immunity from seizure, the minister-approved institution must publish a list of the foreign-based works being borrowed.
The eponymous exhibition surveying Raphael’s two-decade career and output at London’s minister-approved National Gallery (which runs 9 April to 31 July 2022) will include loans of major works from the Louvre in Paris, Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art, Madrid’s Prado, Florence’s Uffizi and the Vatican Museums. But Raphael’s tempura painting of The Holy Family, 1506-07, will not now be borrowed from the collection of Russia’s State Hermitage Museum, which had agreed to the loan. A spokesperson for the National Gallery told The Art Newspaper: ‘The painting had long ago been offered protection under the UK’s immunity from seizure legislation, but earlier this week it was omitted from the National Gallery’s list of works coming from abroad for Raphael. This was presumably done after consultations with Arts Council England, which administers the immunity system on behalf of the UK’s culture department.’
The Victoria and Albert Museum is a minister-approved institution currently showing ‘Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution’, exhibiting many works from Russian State institutions, including the Moscow Kremlin Egg, 1906, the Alexander Palace Egg, 1908, and the Romanov Tercentenary Egg, 1913, lent by the Moscow Kremlin Museums. Although protected by law against court-ordered seizure or forfeiture, nevertheless tricky issues arise for the V&A, such as whether the Russian works should be withdrawn from public view and, if so, whether to cancel the remaining period of the whole exhibition, which is scheduled to run until 8 May 2022. The V&A recently stated that it ‘remains in contact with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on the evolving situation in the Ukraine’. ‘To date’, the V&A added, ‘we’ve had no requests to return loans from Russian institutions.’ Museum management is understandably taking a wait-and-see approach – but for how long?
UK’s legal protection against seizure lasts for 12 months from the date the work enters the UK for the purposes of ‘public display in a temporary exhibition’ at a minister-approved museum or gallery (and for related repatriation or repair purposes). The protection period may exceed 12 months if the work has suffered damage while protected, and ‘is undergoing repair … in the UK because of the damage, or is leaving the UK following [such] repair’. Put another way: if the V&A decided to keep possession of the loaned Fabergé eggs until the end of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and if the war continued beyond November 2022, protection from seizure or forfeiture would end while the museum was still holding the eggs (because the exhibition opened on 20 November 2021, more than 12 months earlier). If such circumstances transpired, Russia’s Fabergé eggs – still located in the UK – could perhaps become the target of further UK sanctions including seizure/forfeiture by court order following legal proceedings.
© Henry Lydiate 2022