Russia's Matisses Come From Hero Collectors: Martin Gayford , Yazzy's at www.williamverdult.com

The Russian government has relented, if not in the case of the British Council, at least on the Royal Academy exhibition. The blockbuster show of masterpieces from Russian museums, set to open in London on Jan. 26, will go ahead. Before it does, let's spare a thought for the erstwhile owners of its stellar exhibits, and their heirs.

The centerpiece of the show will be a selection of works from the collections of Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morosov, all confiscated after the 1917 Revolution.

It was -- ostensibly at least -- concern on the Russian part that these exhibits might be subject to court seizure while in the U.K. that put the show in doubt. British law was rapidly altered to make this impossible. Morally, though, the heirs of those original collectors may have a case.

Both the Shchukins and the Morosovs were families of Moscow textile magnates who accumulated art on a grand scale. Sergei Shchukin (1854-1936) was one of the most important collectors of Modernist art. By the time Lenin came to power, he had amassed 13 Monets, 16 Gauguins, five Degas, four Van Goghs, eight Cezannes, 37 Matisses and 50 Picassos.

Although numerically the Picassos are the most significant, artistically it is the works by Matisse that were the heart of the collection. For years, Shchukin was Matisse's major supporter.

Heroic Collector

He was more than just a customer, he was a patron, working with the artist and commissioning new work. Shchukin, a prudish man with a stammer, was a hero of collecting. He forced himself to accept the most advanced work although he found it alarming.

Initially, he was appalled by ``The Dance,'' the biggest single attraction in the RA exhibition. It was one of two huge paintings ordered to hang on the staircase of Shchukin's Moscow palace. When he first saw the picture he asked the painter to add clothes to the figures (the Shchukin family were Old Believers, members of a conservative sect of the Russian Orthodox Church).

After wrestling with his conscience on the journey home, he changed his mind. Even so, when the companion piece, ``Music,'' arrived, he personally painted out the sexual organs of the flute player in watercolor (an alteration not removed until 1988).

Shchukin spent a lot of his time showing visitors around his collection. His intention was to leave the whole lot, house and pictures to Moscow. But come the Revolution his possessions were confiscated and he was briefly imprisoned.

Splitting the Art

In 1918, Shchukin went into exile with his family. His pictures, like Morosov's, ended up arbitrarily split between the Hermitage and Pushkin museums on the basis of size (St. Petersburg got the large ones).

The descendants of the two families have continued to press their claims. Shchukin's grandson attempted unsuccessfully to seize works on tour in 2003. In 1993, Irina, Shchukin's daughter, wrote to President Boris Yeltsin asking not for the return of her father's collection, which would empty rooms of the Hermitage museum, but for an acknowledgement of past mistreatment.

Her lawyer's request -- one percent of insurance value, plus reproduction rights -- would have cost the government some millions of pounds. Under the circumstances, it wasn't unreasonable. Yeltsin refused. That one percent is a lot larger now.