Royal Academy 'From Russia' preview

Russia was worried that people could claim the paintings had been looted from their relatives during the 1917 revolution, but a change in the law was brought forward providing immunity from seizure.

The exhibition will include works by Cezanne, Renoir and Picasso. At long last the pictures are here and they include the works of Matisse. They arrived last week, and the hang was completed over the weekend.

The show is called From Russia - French and Russian masterpieces from the four main Russian museums, including the Hermitage, the Pushkin and the Tretyakov.

It was almost the show that didn't happen.

In mid-December, the Russians got cold feet, fearful that there might be claims against some of paintings.

Only a swift change in the law here, to prevent such claims, made it possible. And the Russians were reassured.

Everything has turned out fine in the end but things had looked pretty bleak on 19 December.

The fact of the matter is that some of these paintings were appropriated from their original Russian owners during and after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

Two obssesive collectors, both of them wealthy textile merchants, lost some 600 works.

Ivan Morozov, shuttling to and from Paris, favoured Bonnard, Gaugin and Cezanne. He filled his Moscow house with French Impressionists.

Sergei Shchukin was perhaps the bolder of the two. He would buy Cubist Picasso.

Every wall in every room in his mansion seems to have been covered.

The direct descendants of these great Russian art collectors are still tenaciously seeking compensation.

As we know , the Russians have been closing down British Council offices in St Petersburg and elsewhere, suspicious that they are being used for more than cultural purposes.

But they happy to lend these paintings, having been given government assurances they'll get them back. There's both prestige and money in sending them here.

The Russian museums are getting a loan fee.

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