By Jan Gottesman MANAGING EDITOR
Friday, March 18, 2011
CLINTON — Clinton has gotten stuck in the middle of an international incident, and it has nothing to do with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Russia’s Minister of Culture has ordered the immediate return of 37 paintings and artifacts currently on loan to the Museum of Russian Icons.
The Clinton museum’s founder, Gordon Lankton, said a curator from the Andrey Rublev Museum, in Moscow, was scheduled to arrive Thursday night to supervise the sudden dismantling of the exhibit.
The “Treasures From Moscow” exhibition was scheduled to remain in Clinton through July 25.
The exhibit is stuck in a situation called “force majeure,” Lankton said in an interview Thursday, which means a contract dispute cannot be resolved.
“This is completely unrelated to anything said or done by the Museum of Russian Icons,” Lankton added.
He said the Russian Minister of Culture offered no concrete reason for the decision.
In a press release, the museum said there was an unrelated ruling on July 30, 2010, by Royce Lamberth, federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which may offer insight into the decision.
Lamberth’s decision upheld the right to seize “all Russian property not covered by diplomatic immunity,” and may have elevated the Russian government’s concern for the possible seizure of icons. In addition, Lankton said Thursday that the United States and Russian governments are “feuding” over a collection of 12,000 Jewish books that are 250 years old.
“We are very disappointed the exhibition must be disassembled, depriving our visitors of the opportunity to see these outstanding icons,” Lankton said in a prepared statement. “To maintain our cordial relations with the Andrey Rublev Museum, we intend to comply with the Russian Minister’s order to return the icons.”
http://www.telegram.com/article/20110318/C
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