Russia’s Hermitage Museum announces one-year moratorium on exhibitions in US and Europe

The State Hermitage Museum has introduced a one-year moratorium on organising exhibitions in the US and Europe, the museum informed on its website.

“The Hermitage is introducing a one-year moratorium on exhibitions in Europe and the USA. We would like to remind you that in the 1990s, the museum used to introduce moratoriums on exhibitions in Russia as well due to security concerns and high financial risks,” the statement reads.

In May, Director of the Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky stated that “considering the current situation and the situation over the next year”, the museum will not have a permit to take its exhibits abroad.

On 21 June, the Hermitage Museum announced that Titian’s Portrait of a Young Woman and Cariani’s Seduction had returned to St. Petersburg. The museum noted that these were the last works from its collection that were returned from an exhibition abroad.