Dispute Over Jewish Archive Leads Russia to Nix Art Loans

ABC NEWS

In this undated photo released by the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Mass.,
Faberge Miniatures of the Imperial Coronation Regalia, from 1900 St. Petersburg, Russia are shown.

 RUSSIA - A decades-long dispute between Russia and an Orthodox Jewish group over ownership of holy texts collected for centuries by influential rabbis and seized by the Soviet Union has jolted the U.S. art world, threatening an end to major cultural loans between the two countries. Russia has already frozen art loans to major American institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Houston Museum of Natural Science, fearing that its cultural property could be seized after the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Chabad-Lubavitch movement won a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in 2010 compelling the return of its texts. The Met — and possibly other major lending institutions — are weighing whether to discontinue loans of cultural property to Russia. [links]

Kent Russell, curator at the Museum of Russian Icons, in Clinton, Mass.,
displays a poster for a canceled exhibition at the museum.
AP Photo/Steven Senne.