On 16 November 2005 the Press Service of the State Hermitage issued a Statement on behalf of Professor Mikhail Piotrovsky.

Trucks containing 55 Impressionist paintings from Moscow's Pushkin Museum of Fine Art have been arrested at the Swiss border at the request of the trading company Noga, on the grounds of a claimed Russian government debt. Noga says it is owed $25 million and is seeking a further damage claim of $70 million. The paintings have an insurance valuation of around $1 billion. The paintings, which include works by Monet, Renoir, Sisley and Van Gogh, were on view at the Gianadda Foundation, Martigny, in an exhibition entitled Chefs-d'Oeuvre de la Peinture Françaises dans la Collection du Musée National des Beaux-Arts Pushkine de Moscou from 17 June to 13 November 2005.

"This is a very dangerous development of a situation which has worried the international museum community for many years", comments Professor Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. "Most countries do not give complete guarantees for immunity from seizure when art works are sent on temporary exhibition abroad. This has been under active discussion at meetings of the directors of world museums for several years.

"Art works are now being used as hostages in trading disputes. In this case, the air conditioning in the trucks is said to have been switched off thus putting the paintings in severe danger.

"After the British government's failure to provide immunity from seizure for a Titian from the Hermitage requested for a National Gallery exhibition two years ago, when we were forced to refuse the loan, we have been working with our colleagues in Britain to find a solution in the UK. A detailed report on seizure legislation worldwide was kindly prepared by the Art Loss Register for last month's Ameurus Conference at Spencer House on our behalf. We had the opportunity to discuss it with David Lammy, the UK Minister of Culture.

"If this situation is not resolved over the next three days, the Hermitage will withdraw its loans to the Völkerkundemuseum's exhibition in Zurich on the Dalai Lama; our Matisse paintings currently on loan to the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, will not go to the Fondation Beyeler in Basel; and we will cancel our archaeological exhibition at the Laténium Park and Archaeological Museum in Neuchâtel. We will reconsider all our agreements for exhibitions with countries which cannot give proper guarantees to art and where governments do not understand that art is not a commercial commodity.

"We do not send exhibitions to Europe at our own initiative; we are normally responding to requests. We engage in international, and particularly European, exhibitions because we believe in the cultural unity of Europe. We are sorry that others are putting limits on this ideal."